One of the hazards facing eagles is lead just after the firearms deer season; the solution is non-lead shot. Jeff Birchem writes about the solution in Retired DNR conservation officer makes case for copper bullets during deer hunting trip with his daughter:
. . . My daughter, Johanna, 13, and I talked a lot about deer hunting. We talked a lot about doing the "right thing." We talked about hunting safety, hunting laws, ethics and how our actions as individual hunters reflect on the whole hunting community.
We also talked a lot about using copper bullets. I explained to her how we as a family have been using copper bullets for a decade. I explained to her that before I had retired from my job as a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officer, I routinely received numerous calls on sick or dead bald eagles just after the firearms deer season. I would send these birds to the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center. The testing results were always the same: The eagle had ingested small fragments of lead and had been too sick to recover. These eagles almost always either died on their own or were euthanized.
After about five hours of talking, napping and eating almost everything we had brought along, a beautiful 8-point buck walked through our shooting lane at 50 yards. My daughter made a good shot and shortly afterwards, she was listening intently on how to field dress the buck.
We were soon done with the work and went back to the stand to watch the shooting lane for more deer activity. The first raven showed up on the gut pile in less than 30 minutes. Then four more ravens showed up. Then the magpies, followed by the gray jays, and finally by two mature bald eagles—all getting their share of the gut pile.
We watched the avian show for well over an hour. I explained to her that if we had been using lead bullets, and with her shot placement on the deer (she hit the ribs and sternum), there was little doubt that the lead bullet would have fragmented in very small pieces, only to be fed upon by every bird we had just seen at the gut pile.
My daughter always asks good questions. When she asked, "Why don't all deer hunters stop using lead bullets and replace them with copper?" I didn't have a good answer. I told her I didn't know why. Even after years of letting hunters know the dangers of lead in gut piles, showing them that copper bullets outperform most lead bullets and are now equal in price to good quality lead cartridges, hunters in huge percentages continue to use lead bullets. . . .
Read the entire column at the link above. Earlier this year, Bluestem covered the legislative debate over lead shot in a number of posts:
Lead shot debate: bald eagles keep dying and here's what the MN House had to say about it
MN rep says lead is a-okay because it's natural; or, poisoning is life on Planet Josh Heintzeman
The unbearable burden of being Draz when a constituent emails about bald eagles & lead shot
Bluestem thinks thirteen-year-old Johanna Birchem is asking a pretty good question, as well as being a fine shot. Perhaps hunters will change--and the legislature ban the use of lead shot on all public lands.
Photo: Johanna Birchem, 13, harvested this eight-point buck using copper bullets during the opening day of Minnesota's firearms deer season. Submitted to Forum News Service.
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Your post has prompted me to make a trip to my hunting store. Copper sabot slugs are on my shopping list. I am stocking up for 2018. They are expensive because of the copper however Winchester has a $20 rebate through 12/31/2017! Sometimes we only need a little reminder to do the right thing! Thank you!
Posted by: John Lipke | Nov 21, 2017 at 08:36 AM