Lead sinkers -- citations, please

[Buddy Sanders]

Dan,

Not being a journalist, but interested in the topic, I followed ALL of your links over a few hours, and read all I could find. After reading it, I'm wondering if YOU did.

I have to agree with Mr. Boese (as do the studies, numbers and 'data' in ALL the links you provided).

Many of your 'cititaions' were basic rephrasings of the same press release from someplace. Most were government or environmental group web sites. " Lead is bad. Someone did a 'study' and lead is killing birds. Don't use lead tackle. Split shot looks like gravel. Birds eat it thinking it is gravel. Then the lead kills them. " Some were word for word.

A few were 'unavailable', maybe typing errors or the web sites moved. Almost all the frenzy over lead fishing tackle traced back to ONE seminal study (Mr. Scheuhammer....). It apparently got rehashed quite a bit, but all of the 'data' seems not to have changed (I can't think of several different folks writing about the same data as 'separate' studies).

Let me say this again, clearly, by following YOUR citations, apparently only ONE actual 'study' was done, and even the authors stated that it was inconclusive and more study was required (the Scheuhammer studies, apparently this is his baby).

When I actually followed a 'link' that had some facts attached to it, most of it was about lead shot from shotshells. Many of the text alluded to the fact that it's 'possible' for the poor birds to ingest sinkers and jigs, but I couldn't find any place where they actually 'found' them in birds. They did find lots of lead shots from shotshells, though.

A lot of what I read was stated as fact, without any backup. A lot of supposition. They say that since there is a lot of folks fishing with lead, it must be killing birds....but no one mentioned finding a jig in a dead bird.

I found it odd that there were examinations where they stated plainly that they found a certain number of lead shot in a dead bird. Apparently they cut open LOTS of dead waterfowl, loons, and such. NONE of these, and they were what you directed us to, listed ONE instance in all of those dissections where there was ONE piece of fishing tackle in a bird.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but with all this hype, seems someone could have found a picture of an ingested jig head to post, just for the visual impact of it.

Once I got into some of the numbers, though, I realized how ridiculous (my words here, I find it absolutely ludicrous) all this really is. Are we talking MILLIONS of dead birds from lead fishing tackle? Thousands? Hundreds? Nope. Not ONE table or list or study showed it. Lead deaths, mostly from shot shells, sure. But not millions. Not even thousands. Some states had a few hundred spread over a few DECADES. One state, Michigan, had deaths listed by EACH DEAD BIRD over the last few years (can't be accurate, but hey, they are trying..)

What did they find?

ONE dead bird from 'lead poisoning' in one state over a year's time, or three or four (if the 'table' on the site you directed me to is to be believed) forty so over the course of the several years study, less than a third of the overall 'causes' studied...with all these TONS of lead, you'd think that more than a FEW birds would be killed...and again, these were LEAD BIRDSHOT DEATHS, no 'table' or 'study' listed any 'facts' about finding such and such a sinker/jig in X number of birds.

One site listed all kinds of tables with bird by bird docmentation..until they put up a 'table' about fishing tackel. THEN it was all this 'could' happen ,and that 'could' happen..but nothing about it actually happening.

While it may be sad that even one bird dies from lead poisoning, I'm not ready to jump on this bandwagon without some FACTS, and I'm certainly not ready to interrupt or derail a multimillion dollar industry just for the sake of a few dead birds.

One study, especially one where the primary author states that the results were inconclusive and that it requitres further study, is not enough to 'ban' lead fishing tackle.

I'm not accusing anyone of an agenda here, but I do know that most of the folks involved with this have no clue about actual fishing tackle. Almost all of these anti lead tackle press releases specifically mention jigs. Jigs almost always have a hook attached to them, and I'd think that the hook would be MUCH more dangerous to the bird than the lead in the head, but that's just me.

You may be a journalist, but Mr. Boese apparently did more homework than you gave him credit for.

Next time you try to overwhelm us with data, be prepared for the guy who will actually READ it all.

Buddy