sd_shooter
06-26-2012, 5:05 AM
Link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_20934859/new-study-lead-poisoning-condors-at-epidemic-proportions
California condors, one of the world's most endangered species, are facing lead poisoning from hunters' bullets "at epidemic levels," and will not recover unless further steps are taken to control it, a new study Monday found.
A review of more than 1,154 blood samples taken from wild California condors and tested between 1997 and 2010 found that 48 percent of the birds had lead levels so high that they could have died without treatment in animal hospitals.
So far, even a ban on lead bullets in the birds' habitat appears to have had little effect, the study found.
"Lead poisoning is preventing the recovery of California condors," said Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz who was a lead author of the study. "The population is not self-sustaining."
The problem is that condors -- the birds with the largest wingspan in North America -- are scavengers. They eat dead deer, pigs and other animals, often that hunters have shot. They ingest bullet fragments and are poisoned.
Responding to the problem, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law in 2007 to ban the use of hunting with lead bullets, slugs or buckshot in the condors' range, which extends from Los Angeles to San Jose, where the birds have been seen atop Mount Hamilton. But it hasn't worked. Birds analyzed before the law took effect had blood levels the same as birds analyzed afterward.
I say, let these vultures die off already!
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_20934859/new-study-lead-poisoning-condors-at-epidemic-proportions
California condors, one of the world's most endangered species, are facing lead poisoning from hunters' bullets "at epidemic levels," and will not recover unless further steps are taken to control it, a new study Monday found.
A review of more than 1,154 blood samples taken from wild California condors and tested between 1997 and 2010 found that 48 percent of the birds had lead levels so high that they could have died without treatment in animal hospitals.
So far, even a ban on lead bullets in the birds' habitat appears to have had little effect, the study found.
"Lead poisoning is preventing the recovery of California condors," said Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz who was a lead author of the study. "The population is not self-sustaining."
The problem is that condors -- the birds with the largest wingspan in North America -- are scavengers. They eat dead deer, pigs and other animals, often that hunters have shot. They ingest bullet fragments and are poisoned.
Responding to the problem, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law in 2007 to ban the use of hunting with lead bullets, slugs or buckshot in the condors' range, which extends from Los Angeles to San Jose, where the birds have been seen atop Mount Hamilton. But it hasn't worked. Birds analyzed before the law took effect had blood levels the same as birds analyzed afterward.
I say, let these vultures die off already!