Illegal Wolf Kills Spiking in Michigan’s UP

  • Some hunters in Michigan's upper peninsula say the wolves' "sacred cow" status is causing more animosity toward the animals. (Photo courtesy of www.isleroyalewolf.org)

No other wildlife species, it seems, causes such extremes of emotion as the wolf.

Some people want to protect it at any cost.

Others want to shoot the animal on sight.

And in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula illegal wolf kills are spiking.

Wildlife officials say they can defuse the situation if they can just get gray wolves removed from the endangered species list.

Bob Allen reports.

More about the history of wolves in Michigan

More about removing Michigan wolves (included in the western GL wolf population) from the Endangered Species List

Michigan’s Wolf Management Plan

More on Michigan’s Isle Royale Wolves (the longest study of any predator-prey system in the world)

Transcript

The return of gray wolves to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula more than twenty years ago was not cause for alarm, at first.
But that’s changed drastically in the last few years as more sportsmen are convinced wolves are now decimating the white tail deer population.

Larry Livermore manages the 35,000 acre Hiawatha Sportsman’s Club, about an hour’s drive west of the Mackinaw Bridge.

LIVERMORE: “There was no hatred of wolves until people created the hatred by not allowing them to be managed.”

As long as the wolf is under federal protection it can only be killed if it’s causing imminent threat to human life.
The wolf population in Michigan is more than six times the goal set for them under the Endangered Species Act.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now trying for the fourth time to remove gray wolves from the protected list in the Upper Great Lakes states.
So far, national wildlife protection groups have managed to block those efforts in federal court.

The groups contend wolves still need to expand into northeastern states before protections are removed.
Larry Livermore says while all this legal wrangling is going on members at the eighty year old Hiawatha Club are giving up their memberships and selling their places because the deer hunting has become pathetic.

LIVERMORE: “You have a whole bunch of honest law abiding citizens who have finally had enough and say, you don’t care about us, you don’t understand our dilemma here and so we will take it into our own hands. And that’s happening here. People who I never dreamed would say I would shoot a wolf are telling me that they will shoot one.”

There was a spike in illegal wolf kills in the U.P. last year.
Wildlife officials found fifteen collared wolves shot out of an overall population pushing near 700.
And the Department says poaching is on the upswing again this year too.

But Brian Roell is not alarmed about it.
He is the go-to wolf guy for the DNR in Marquette.
He says illegal kills are not reducing the overall population.

And Roell says once federal protection is gone people will stop feeling like the wolf is being treated as a “sacred cow”.

ROELL: “Being able to empower people to actually take some control back is going to go a long way in helping people come to live with wolves.”

DNR officials have a management plan ready to go once the wolf is delisted.
The plan would give people the authority to defend against attacks on their pets and livestock.
And it would allow them to cull wolves in places where they’re putting a lot of pressure on deer.

But some sportsmen’s groups want to go further than that.
They want the state to open a hunting season on them.
Sportsmen say if wolves are treated more like bears with limited harvests then the animals will have some value to people.

But Nancy Warren thinks the top predator has its own value in the natural order of things.
In the summertime, she takes visitors out at night to howl with wolves on her property in the western U.P.
She says the number of deer killed by wolves and reported threats to humans are being exaggerated.
But she agrees the state ought to be able to manage problem wolves.

WARREN: “Let people see that the state is able to manage these wolves. And we could get rid of some of these myths and the misinformation and see that, yeah, we can live with wolves.”

Warren fears a return to the bad old days when wolves were considered varmints and poisoned or shot on sight.

But Brian Roell with the DNR doesn’t see wholesale slaughter of wolves coming back into play.
Because once the wolf comes off the endangered species list, he says, no one is going to want to risk having to put it back on again.

This Little Piggy Went Wild

  • The Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig. (Photo by Richard Bartz)

State wildlife officials say there’s a new invasive species in Michigan – Wild hogs. They are hunted on game ranches all over the state, but they can sometimes escape and officials say they can permanently alter any landscape they make their home. Peter Payette visited a man who raises pigs for his hunting ranch.

More on wild hogs, or feral swine, from MDNRE

USDA on wild hogs

How to spot pig tracks in the wild

Transcript

Wild is not the first word that comes to mind when you see Harvey Haney’s pigs.

Haney: Which one would you like me to pet?
Hunting ranches refer to these animals as Russian boars. They’re brown and hairy and the males have small tusks.

“We even find women don’t really care to shoot a pretty looking deer but they will shoot a hog because they’re so ugly lookin’”

We’re actually not at a hunting ranch right now. Haney raises boars at his home north of Bay City for his hunting ranch an hour north. This winter he’ll release them into 200 acres of woods surrounded by a ten-foot fence. He says once on the loose in the woods the pigs will become more wild and aggressive.

You can shoot one for $550. That’s about the cheapest hunt available from Heritage Trophy Hunts. Deer and elk cost $1,000. Haney expects to turn away pig hunters this winter.

“It seems like there’s a lot of hunters out there with 500 dollars to have a good time with all their friends. It’s generally a group activity. You can have groups as big as ten guys at one time doing a pig hunt.”

Russian boars are not native to North America. They were brought from Europe and are common in the southern United States, but state wildlife officials say there are now a few thousand on the loose in Michigan, mainly because they’ve been escaping from hunting ranches. A report from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment says nearly 50 were shot last year.

“Pigs are essentially four-footed Asian carp.”

Russ Mason heads the wildlife division at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment. His staff recommends declaring wild pigs an invasive species. They tear up forests and farmland and destroy habitat for other animals. Once established, pigs are all but impossible to get rid of because they’re smart and multiply quickly.

Mason says it’s possible to keep pigs fenced in, but you need something more than the standard 10-foot high game fence most ranches use.

“Maybe double fencing. Ten foot high fence goes two feet into the ground, bevels in six feet to prevent digging, maybe anchored in concrete and a hotwire on top that will make bacon if you try to cross it. Plus clearing vegetation for twenty yards on either side so nothing can knock it down. That’s an expensive fence.

At least 40 hunting ranches in Michigan sell boar hunts, and they have some support in Lansing. Michigan Farm Bureau came out in favor of allowing the existing ranches to operate as long there are some rules. At the moment there are no regulations for wild pigs.
Earlier this month singer and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent was more outspoken about hogs. Nugent owns a ranch near Jackson. He told the Natural Resources Commission hunting is an important part of the state’s heritage and economy. He says boars seldom escape and when it happens they’re quickly rounded up.

“The hog hunting and high fence operations in this state are a win win win. And I challenge those who claim there are 5,000 to 7,000 pigs out there to show me one. I’ve got the boots let’s go find it. They’re not there.”

The director of the DNRE could declare wild pigs an invasive species at anytime. Then it would be illegal to have one anywhere even on a private ranch. Michigan lawmakers wouldn’t have to approve that decision, but for now the department will meet with the industry to discuss other solutions.

State officials say there are compromises, like requiring hunted pigs to be sterilized, but if wild pigs are regulated the next question is who pays for inspections and enforcement.

There is a precedent in this region – the state of Wisconsin has declared feral pigs an exotic species. There, it’s open season on the pigs year round.

Peter Payette, The Environment Report.

VIDEO: Pig Problem in Texas

The Great Blue Heron

  • An island in the Upper Mississippi, not far from downtown Minneapolis, is home to many Great Blue Herons.(Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

Some people say robins are the first sign of spring. But there’s another bird that makes a dramatic entry in northern states. The Great Blue Heron soars in to make a nest… and guard it:

Transcript

Some people say robins are the first sign of spring. But there’s another bird that makes a dramatic entry in northern states. The Great Blue Heron soars in to make a nest… and guard it:

On an island in the Upper Mississippi River, a stand of cottonwood trees is silhouetted against a gray sky. The bare branches are festooned with big nests, made of twigs and branches. Next to the nests, like sentinels at the castle gate, stand Great Blue Herons. These birds are four feet tall. More than a hundred of them are claiming their domain in these trees, just upriver from downtown Minneapolis. When one takes off and glides away, its six-foot wing span dwarfs the ducks and songbirds sharing the island.

It’s hard to tell the males from the females because they’re the same blue and gray. Birder Sharon Stiteler is leading me on a tour of this rookery.

“The males arrive first, and they work out who’s going to take which nest. Where you see one bird standing up, that is most likely a male. He’s hanging out there because the other males who are still waiting to attract a female could come by and steal sticks out of his nest to make his nest look better.”

On some nests, you can see females already sitting on pale blue eggs the size of small mangoes. But Stiteler says herons are not always good parents.

“If the chick falls out of the nest and lands on the ground, that chick is toast: the parents will not continue feeding it. And oftentimes you’ll see turkey vultures hanging out at rookeries, and they’re waiting for the young to fall and starve, and then they’ll have a whole bunch of food.”

But at least on this island, there won’t be many predators like coyotes or foxes.

These birds were once threatened by humans. Their cousins the egrets were hunted for their beautiful white feathers, and both suffered disastrous population loss until the pesticide DDT was banned.

Now you can see them in streams and lakes all over. They breed in Canada and the upper midwest. They spend their winters wherever they can find food. Herons literally stalk their prey.

“They have a lot of patience, and they just stare at one spot for long time, and then they jab down and grab the fish. Their beak is shaped like a pair of super-sharp chopsticks. Sometimes they catch a huge fish and they have to juggle it around, especially if they have it perpendicular with their beak, they have to jostle it around, and the fish is wiggling, and eventually they get it just right so it’s straight in line with the bill, and you can watch this huge thing slide down that long slender neck.”

Sharon Stiteler is a part-time naturalist with the National Park Service, and she writes a blog called bird-chick-dot-com.

Today the herons are pretty quiet. But Stiteler has a Blackberry loaded with their sounds, including the prehistoric squawk they make when they’re startled.

And Stiteler says it can sound really strange when the young are clattering for food.

After the young are raised — at least the ones that survive — the herons will stay here on the river, until it freezes over and they can’t fish anymore. Stiteler says the birds decamp all at once.

“One day we have Great Blue Herons, and the next day they’re gone, and they migrate at night.”

They tuck back their long necks when they fly, forming an S-shape and hiding their true length.

Stiteler says the recovery of Great Blue Herons, along with pelicans, eagles, and other birds near the top of the food chain is a sign of a healthier ecosystem.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Interview: Climate Affecting Fish and Game

  • The National Wildlife Federation is concerned about the nation's fish and game species being impacted by climate change. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Transcript

People are beginning to notice the effects
of climate change – especially people who
get out in nature a lot. Hunters and anglers
with the National Wildlife Federation recently
released a list of some of the game and fish
species that are at risk due to climate change.
Lester Graham talked with one of the members
of the group:

Lester Graham: Kathleen Law in an angler, a member of the National Wildlife Federation, a former member of the Michigan Legislature, and a retired research scientist. First, what kind of game and fish, besides polar bears and penguins, are at risk because of climate change?

Kathleen Law: Well, everything that nests in the water or tries to have a fishery involved. It is affecting our national and our local bird, deer, the population, the habitat.

Graham: I guess that’s the question, though – how do we know that it’s not something else at work? How do we know that it’s climate change? And, of course, the skeptics will say, ‘how do we know it’s man-caused changes to the climate?’

Law: Well, we can continue being in a state of denial, and wonder where everything went, or we can get ahead. It’s not important to me who’s causing it, it’s, ‘what can I do to help?’

Graham: The US House has passed climate change legislation, the Senate is debating a version. Will the policies in those bills be enough to save some of these fish and game species you’re worried about?

Law: It’ll give us a chance. Without a concerted, willful effort, we have a very limited chance. So, there are things that we can do, that we must do, as a people who want diversity, who want to fish, who want to eat – I like venison. So what do we do to protect that resource and, and in a positive way? Which is the education and resource restoration, I think, is probably the best way to start.

Graham: Opponents of climate change legislation worry a cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme will cost the economy too much. They don’t want the US to be put at a competitive disadvantage. Will the concerns of hunters and fishers sway any members of Congress to actually support climate legislation, if they believe it’s a jobs killer?

Law: Well, it will certainly be a consideration. The hunters and fishing folk are your constituents, they’re your neighbors, they’re your family. You can look at that, ‘it’s a job killer.’ So is climate disruption a job killer. So, how do we create new jobs? Well let’s get people out planting marsh grass. Let’s, you know, something positive. Something that people can do that makes a difference for them and their neighborhood and their community. That’s positive. That’s hope. We gotta give them hope.

Graham: What is the National Wildlife Federation doing in Washington to affect the debate about climate change?

Law: Well, they have flown in a large contingent of just people who are hunters and fishers and who have represented people in the constituencies to come in and talk to the Senators. Our hunters and fishing people – consider them sentinels. They’re out there in November, hunting ducks. They’re out in April, standing in the water, fishing. These are sentinel people, and to pay attention to what they’re saying is very important, vital, and that’s what we did in Washington DC.

Graham: Kathleen Law is a retired research scientist, a former member of the Michigan legislature, and working with the National Wildlife Federation as part of an effort to save fish and game species the group says is at risk because of climate change. Thanks very much.

Law: Thank you.

Related Links

Part 4: Hunters Warned After Dioxin Delays

  • Fish advisories dot the banks of the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers. Various forms or pollution, including historical dioxin pollution from Dow Chemical, have led to warnings to avoid certain species of fish and limit consumption for them. Pregnant woment and young children are given more stringent warnings. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

It’s deer season in Michigan, and
hunters are trekking through the woods,
trying to bag dinner or something
special for the holidays. Hunting’s
gotten a little complicated in some
areas recently. Just because you catch
something doesn’t mean you should eat
it. That’s because a stretch of river
in Michigan was polluted with dioxin –
decades ago. In the fourth part of a
series on Dow Chemical and dioxin, Shawn
Allee found the state thinks
old dioxin pollution from a Dow chemical
plant poses a health risk today:

Transcript

It’s deer season in Michigan, and
hunters are trekking through the woods,
trying to bag dinner or something
special for the holidays. Hunting’s
gotten a little complicated in some
areas recently. Just because you catch
something doesn’t mean you should eat
it. That’s because a stretch of river
in Michigan was polluted with dioxin –
decades ago. In the fourth part of a
series on Dow Chemical and dioxin, Shawn
Allee found the state thinks
old dioxin pollution from a Dow chemical
plant poses a health risk today:

It was hard for me to understand why wild game like deer or turkey might be contaminated from river pollution, so I hit up Daniel O’Brien for some answers. O’Brien’s a toxicologist with Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources. He says the problem starts with dioxin in the river.

“It’s in the sediments in these contaminated parts of the Tittabawassee River, and after flood events in the spring when, say, mud in the river gets deposited onto bushes or whatever and deer browse those, then they pick up soil that way.”

Part of O’Brien’s job is to spread the news about the contamination. He says when you buy a hunting license in Michigan you get this brochure.

“It’s a booklet that has all the regulations for hunting and trapping in it.”

These wildlife consumption advisories are voluntary but they kinda read like owners manuals. They lay out where the dioxin-contaminated animals are. They tell you what animals you can eat, and what parts. For example, no one’s supposed to eat deer liver from the areas – that’s got the most dioxin in it. And, of cuts you can eat, the advisory says how much, and how often. Plus, they tell who should eat less or maybe none at all.

“Kids might be more sensitive. They might have a more stringent advisory than somebody like me who’s kinda your middle-aged man and we might not be as susceptible to toxic effects.”


The idea’s to protect people from dioxin, and the risk it poses for cancer and diseases of the immune, reproductive, and developmental systems. It’s an important job, given how big hunting is in Michigan.

“We have three quarters of a million hunters every year that go afield and harvest half a million white-tailed deer.”

Michigan scientists take the issue seriously, but I’m kinda curious whether hunters do. So, I visit the Saginaw Field and Stream Club. Inside, there’s this paneled wall with faded pictures of club presidents. It stretches from the club’s founding in 1916 – all the way to this guy, current President Tom Heritier.

“We’re still here today.”

Heritier says his club’s smack-dab in the contaminated area and everyone knows about the advisories, but, well …

“With the game advisories, I have not heard one person who has any problem with the deer or the birds around the watershed.”

This goes for him, too.

“Nobody is sick from it. I don’t know of anybody that has died of exposure. That’s never been proven. It’s nothing to take lightly, but then again, it might be a little bit on the overblown side, too.”

The State of Michigan tried to survey hunters like Heritier. Officials wanted to know if hunters were feeding tainted game to young children. That survey never made the budget.

Before I leave the hunting club, Heritier wants to clear something up. He’s actually mad about dioxin. It’s in the environment – he wants it gone.

Heritier: “There’s absolutely no reason for industry to be polluting our natural resources, whether it be air, soil, or water.”

Allee: “Even if it’s not a slam-dunk, for sure, killing people off sort of thing?”

Heritier: “Number one, God didn’t put it there, it don’t belong there. That’s the way it is.”

Well, Heritier wants the environment protected from dioxin, but not necessarily himself.

State scientists say, if Heritier changes his mind and wants to reduce his health risk – they’ll keep printing those game advisories for him.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Pet Pythons on the Loose in Florida

  • JD Willson holding a juvenile python. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Foreign animals that get released
in the wild usually don’t spark that
much interest. But when that species
is a giant snake, well, most people
sit up and take notice. That’s the
problem facing the state of Florida,
where Burmese pythons have moved in
to Everglades National Park. Now,
scientists are trying to figure out
if the snakes could spread to the
rest of the country. Samara Freemark reports:

Transcript

Foreign animals that get released
in the wild usually don’t spark that
much interest. But when that species
is a giant snake, well, most people
sit up and take notice. That’s the
problem facing the state of Florida,
where Burmese pythons have moved in
to Everglades National Park. Now,
scientists are trying to figure out
if the snakes could spread to the
rest of the country. Samara Freemark reports:

Meet South Florida’s newest invasive species – the 20 ft long, 200 lb,
Burmese python.

“They’re impressive animals. They’re really impressive animals. And
they’re breeding
like crazy out there.”

That’s python researcher JD Willson. He says the pythons probably started
off as pets –
until their owners got bored of them and dumped them in the Everglades. Now
those pets
have procreated their way into a huge wild population.

“Certainly thousands. Certainly tens of thousands. Some people have gone
as far as to
say hundreds of thousands.”

Willson says most pythons won’t attack humans. But they do pose a big
threat to local
ecosystems.

“These are snakes that are top predators. They eat alligators, they got a
bobcat record, a
couple of white tail deer. These are a predator that native wildlife are
just not prepared to
deal with. They’re not used to having a giant snake around.”

Florida lawmakers are considering putting a bounty on the pythons – paying
hunters to
kill them. And people in neighboring states just have their fingers crossed
that the
pythons won’t spread north.

But no one really knows enough about the snakes to come up with a good
control plan.

Willson and some other researchers are trying to change that.

“This is the python enclosure.”

They’ve built a little artificial habitat in South Carolina, surrounded
it with a really tall
wall, and filled it with 10 pythons. The researchers want to learn more
about how the
snakes behave in the wild, and see if they can make it through a winter
with freezing
temperatures.

(sound of door opening)

The snakes are tagged with radio transmitters, so the scientists can track
them and record
data on how they’re doing.

Freemark: “It’s safe to be in here?”

Bower: “Oh yeah, they’re not aggressive.”

Inside a student volunteer, Rick Bower, is tracking the snakes with a radio
receiver.

“As you sweep it across, you can see how the signal strength changes and
you get an idea
of where the strongest signal is coming from.”

The receiver tells us we’re basically standing right on top of one of the
pythons.

“Yeah, he’s right at our feet. Yeah, he’s down there.”

But we don’t see anything, even when Willson starts jabbing a stick at
the source of the
beeping.

“Somewhere within an 8 foot radius of where we are, there’s an 11 foot
snake. And he’s
hiding in this aquatic vegetation. And not only can we not see him, but
poking in the
vegetation doesn’t seem to be eliciting too much of a reaction.”

He’s a really sneaky snake.

Whit Gibbons is also working with the crew. He says that if the scientists
have so much
trouble tracking down their pythons, in an enclosed cage, using radio
transmitters –
there’s no way bounty hunters could make even a dent in the Everglades
python
population.

“So they find a hundred, so what. There’s a hundred thousand left. No
one’s going to find
100,000. I mean, we’ve got ‘em in a small enclosure, 10 big snakes,
over 75 feet of snake
if you add them up. And you can’t find them.”

Instead, Gibbons says people could opt for a harm reduction strategy- focus
on limiting
the spread of the snakes, try to protect species they threaten.

“One position is, ‘okay, they’re here, here’s what they can do to
us, or to our pets, or to
the wildlife. Let’s learn to live with them.’”

The South Carolina python study ends next summer. JD Willson says he’s
not sure what
they’ll do with the snakes afterwards. But he does know one thing –
they’re not going to
release them back into the wild.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Open Season on Wolves

  • Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

Transcript

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.

Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.

So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.

“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”

A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.

Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.

The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Some States Planning Wolf Hunts

  • In some states, there are plans for a wolf hunting season (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Some states plan to let people hunt wolves. Rebecca Williams reports that’s happening because the US government is taking gray wolves off the federal endangered species list in two places:

Transcript

Some states plan to let people hunt wolves. Rebecca Williams reports that’s happening because the US government is taking gray wolves off the federal endangered species list in two places:

This decision means states in the western Great Lakes and several Rocky Mountain states will have control over wolves.

Some states are calling wolves a protected nongame species.

For example in Michigan, a wolf can only be killed if it’s attacking people, pets or livestock. But in other states – like Idaho and Montana – there are plans for a hunting season for wolves.

Jonathan Lovvorn is chief counsel for the Humane Society of the United States. His group and several others are planning to sue.

“Essentially what we’re worried about is that this is basically going to be a declaration of open season on animals that have been protected for decades.”

The federal decision to take wolves off the endangered species list could be overturned in court. That happened last fall.

If the decision sticks, then the Fish and Wildlife Service will be keeping an eye on wolf populations for at least the next five years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Lead Bullets and Hunters’ Meat

  • Condors are harmed by eating meat contaminated with lead from hunters' bullets (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Hunters have been using lead
bullets for decades to kill game with
little, if any, side effects. But new
research finds that hunters may need
to use more caution when choosing their
bullets. Reporter Sadie Babits has this
story on a hidden danger that’s just
coming to light:

Transcript

Hunters have been using lead
bullets for decades to kill game with
little, if any, side effects. But new
research finds that hunters may need
to use more caution when choosing their
bullets. Reporter Sadie Babits has this
story on a hidden danger that’s just
coming to light:

Tony Hanson has been hunting wild game all of his life. And over the years, he’s
grown pretty attached to what he considers the most cost effective, most efficient
bullet around – a lead bullet.

“It matters a lot to a hunter. You are counting on the range of that bullet. You know
what the bullet can do and you know what the gun will do. You’re out there to take
an animals life, and that’s not something we take lightly.”

The typical bullet used by most hunters is made up of about 65% lead. The bullet is
capped off with a copper jacket. These bullets are designed to handle high speeds and
to kill an animal quickly without breaking apart and sending tiny lead fragments
throughout the meat. Hanson works with the country’s largest conservation group –
Michigan United Conservation Clubs. He says he’s not concerned about possible
lead poisoning.

“Generally speaking, if you make the shot you are supposed to make you’re not
getting any edible meat. It’s not something that really weighs into my thought too
much. ”

Like Hansen, most hunters don’t give lead bullets a second thought. So why worry?

Well, early last spring, food pantries across North Dakota and Minnesota were
advised not to give out donated ground venison. That’s after lab tests revealed tiny
lead fragments in some of the meat.

It generated enough interest that North Dakota launched a study involving some 700
people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked with North
Dakota’s Health Department. They found that people who ate a lot of wild game
tended to have higher lead levels in their blood than those who ate very little or no
wild game.

The results validated similar research involving California Condors. The Condors
almost went extinct in large part because of lead poisoning. You see, the birds would
feed on gut piles and carcasses left by hunters, and, if those hunters used lead bullets,
the condors would get sick.

That old problem still exists. Lead poisoning remains the number one obstacle
standing in the way of restoring the California Condors.

(sound of birds outdoors)

Rick Watson is the vice president of the Peregrine Fund in Boise, Idaho. He says
they’ve tracked the birds through satellites to see what they feed on. They’ve also
shot deer in the same way a hunter would, using typical lead bullets. The animals
were then x-rayed.

“And we were astounded by the results. Typically out of the 30 or so deer all of them
had fragmented lead bullets in them. And we were also amazed about the actual
extent the lead fragments are sprayed throughout the meat.”

Watson says about 5% of a bullet does break apart and some of it gets into the meat.
He’s now working on another study to see the impact of lead bullets on people.
That’s involved shooting more deer, sending the meat to random processors, and
then running that meat through an x-ray machine. The findings, he says support
what North Dakota discovered late last fall.

“And again what we found that 30% of the packages of meat that came back had at
least one fragment of lead in them.”

Not enough to make a person sick, but enough to raise a red flag. Watson says the
solution is simple. Hunters need to use non-toxic lead bullets. But most hunters
aren’t convinced. So-called green bullets are about twice the cost of lead bullets and
hunters don’t believe they are as efficient.

Hunters say they want independent research done before anybody starts making the
switch to non toxic bullets.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Lead Poisoning and California Condors

  • Adult California Condor in flight (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s been decades, but there are now more California Condors in the wild than there
are in captivity. That’s thanks to two condor chicks who recently left their nests in
the Grand Canyon. As Sadie Babits reports, biologists are thrilled, but one of the
problems that caused the decline in condors still exists:

Transcript

It’s been decades, but there are now more California Condors in the wild than there
are in captivity. That’s thanks to two condor chicks who recently left their nests in
the Grand Canyon. As Sadie Babits reports, biologists are thrilled, but one of the
problems that caused the decline in condors still exists:


At the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, there’s a wood fence that
protects the California Condors that live behind it.

“Just lately in order to minimize the exposure of our adult breeding pairs to humans,
we’ve built this security fence or actually it’s a visual barrier, we call it.”

That’s Bill Heinrich. He overseas the California Condor Recovery program at the
Center.

There is this one small break in the fence – a part that hasn’t been built yet. And
behind some chain link, I can see some very large birds…

Sadie: “Is that a Condor right there??”

Bill: “Yeah… you can see an adult condor standing, a pair of them on a perch.”

Sadie: “Ooohhhh!”

Bill: “You can kind of get an idea of just how big they really are.

Sadie: “They’re huge!”

Bill: “They weigh anywhere from 18-25 pounds and have close to a 10 foot wingspan.”

In the early 1980s the California Condors almost went the way of the Dodo –
extinct. Only 22 of these birds remained in the wild.

The big birds were killed by hunters. They died from lead poisoning after eating
animals killed with lead bullets. And their own genetic makeup didn’t help much
either.

These birds, shall we say, have a low sex drive. Rather than produce chicks every
year and gamble that they’ll survive, condors lay one egg every other year. That
hasn’t worked so well.

So biologists thought they’d help. They started capturing the endangered condors to
begin a captive breeding program. In 1987, the last wild bird was caught.

Bill Heinrich recalls there was plenty of controversy over that decision.

“People thought well you should let them go extinct with dignity or you can try to
breed them in captivity but you might fail and then you would have lost them in the
wild that much quicker.”

But the move saved the birds from being killed by hunters or from eventual lead
poisoning.

And, the breeding program, well, let’s just say the numbers speak for themselves.
Down to 22 birds in 1987, today there are now 327 California Condors. And more
than half of those birds are back in the wild.

Bill Heinrich says next spring some of these condors will be released some where
around the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

That’s where the birds will once again be exposed to one of the factors that lead to
their decline. It’s not hunters these days. The birds are protected by the Endangered
Species Act. But lead poisoning. Condors feed on gut piles and carcasses left by
hunters. If a hunter uses lead bullets, the bullet will explode sending tiny fragments
of lead through the meat. It’s enough to make a condor sick. Heinrich says lead
poisoning remains the single biggest threat to the birds.

“You know if hadn’t been for the lead issue coming up, I would have thought, I
didn’t have any reservations about it being successful until the lead problem cropped
up.”

Every year, biologists have to test the birds for lead poisoning. They’ve been working
with the Arizona Game and Fish Department to hand out free non-lead bullets to
hunters in the area. Last year, not a single condor died from lead poisoning. This
year, biologists have had to treat six birds, all of which are expected to make a full
recovery.

In California, the state has banned lead ammunition because of the lead poisoning
concern. But hunters don’t think lead bullets are a real problem, and they really
don’t want to pay for different kinds of bullets because that is a lot more expensive.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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