It’s been a long time coming, but California is now the first state in the Union to ban lead bullets and shot.
Gov. Jerry Brown last month signed into law a measure that phases out lead ammunition by 2019 with new regulations, to be written by the state Fish and Game Department, due by July 2015. The federal government banned lead ammunition from waterfowl hunting in 1991. California had passed an earlier ban on lead bullets
used by hunters but only to protect endangered condors in their habitat.
The new law covers hunting of all wildlife, including game and non-game birds and non-game mammals such as coyotes.
Condors had become virtually extinct in 1982, with only 22 birds left in the wild, when a captive breeding program was initiated. By 2007, the population had recovered to about 300, and juveniles have regularly been released since that time near Mt. Pinos in the Los Padres National Forest.
Scientists believe that condors, not known for their mental acuity to start with, have been made dumber by ingesting lead from carcasses and gut piles left by hunters. Tejon Ranch in the mountains north of Los Angeles County has required non-lead ammunition for licensed hunters on their land for almost a decade.
Lead bullets often explode on impact, scattering as many as 500 tiny fragments through a victim.
Raptors and other scavengers feeding on the remains are sickened when they ingest the small shards. Condors are less likely to spit out even larger lead fragments, biologists say.
Lead has poisoned about 60 types of non-aquatic birds, including hawks and eagles. Quail, grouse and other ground birds also swallow lead pellets when they pick up grit for their gizzards.
The ban would also protect deer and elk that evade capture but die later, not of their wounds but from lead poisoning.
Other states have documented similar harm brought wrought by hunters’ lead on the food chain.
Blood tests conducted by scientists on bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Montana showed much higher levels of lead in the bloodstream during hunting season than at other times of the year. Bears feed on carcasses of winter-killed dear and elk, but during hunting season they also feed on animals shot by hunters and gut piles left after field dressing.
Arizona sponsored a voluntary program of coupons for lead-free bullets given out with hunting licenses in areas where condors feed. In 2005, about two-thirds of more than 2,000 licensed hunters redeemed their coupons, and 89 percent said they would use the bullets again if they were offered.
The bill was one of 11 gun-regulation measures signed by governor Brown, who also vetoed seven other firearms bills such as one banning semiautomatic combat style rifles with detachable magazines. He said the bill applied to “low capacity” rifles commonly used for hunting, firearms training and marksmanship practice, as well as some historical and collectible firearms. That measure would have also required current owners to register their weapons and would have prohibited them from selling or transferring them.
The Center for Biological Diversity praised Brown’s action in a statement. Switching to nontoxic ammunition, it said, will save thousands of birds and “keep hunters and their families from being exposed to toxic lead.”
On the other hand, state game wardens, tasked with enforcing the earlier ban in condor habitat, opposed the bill. They cited “insufficient data to justify such a drastic action across the state.”
Brown authorized the state’s Fish and Game director to suspend the ban if the federal government outlaws non-lead ammunition because it can pierce armor.
It’s been six years since I first wrote about the dangers of lead ammunition and the various programs to control it. And while I was encouraged by the governor’s signing of the bill to eliminate this threat to wildlife, implementation seems a long way off.
I also admit that I haven’t read the bills he vetoed. I hope he did so because they contained clauses he found too restrictive rather than because of intense pressure by gun rights groups.
Brown has been a strong and effective governor of a state that often defies governance.
Although many of my friends are hunters (even some in my family have hunted for meat), I abhor the useless killing of wildlife.
If this bill works as it should and if those responsible for regulating it are not adversely influenced by gun rights activists, the state will be better off. And hopefully other states will follow California’s lead.