Lead acutely threatens California condor population, study s

Discuss the live critter cams, animals and green topics around the planet.

Moderators: Kenya, webearthonline

Post Reply
User avatar
webearthonline
Global Moderator
Posts: 1826
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:18 am
Contact:

Lead acutely threatens California condor population, study s

Post by webearthonline »

In the news

Lead acutely threatens California condor population, study says
Researchers provide evidence that the main source of the toxic metal is bullets from hunters that are left behind in animal carcasses, which the huge birds eat.
June 25, 2012|By Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times

(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service )
Field biologist Joe Burnett was standing at the base of a tree in Big Sur when the giant, limp body of a California condor landed at his feet.

Even before his team learned the official cause of death, they knew it was lead poisoning from the telltale signs they'd seen earlier in the bird, such as weight loss and erratic behavior.

"What happens to the condors as a result of lead poisoning — it's not pretty," said Burnett, who tracks California condors around the state for the Ventana Wildlife Society.

Lead threatens all of the state's condors, according to a new study by Burnett and colleagues that was published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Of the 150 free-flying condors in California during the period of the study, one in three had some amount of lead poisoning and one in five was severely poisoned each year, requiring intensive lead-removal treatments if the birds were to survive.

The study also provided evidence that the main source of the poison is lead bullets from hunters that are left behind in animal carcasses, which the birds eat.

For years, wildlife experts have called lead from ammunition a major threat to condors. But the new research shows how dangerous the toxic metal is to the future of the species, the authors said.

"The levels of lead are completely mind-boggling," said Donald Smith, an environmental toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz and senior author on the study. "Usually, in people, if we see an incidence of 1% we call it an epidemic — and this is 20%."

The California condor exists today only because of a series of remarkable interventions by conservationists.

The huge bird, which has a 9-foot wingspan and will fly 160 miles in a day to satisfy its hunger for rotting meat, once numbered more than 500 in the southwestern U.S. alone. By 1982, its population had plummeted to 22 due to lead poisoning, poaching and habitat destruction.

In 1987, all the remaining wild birds were captured for breeding and, five years later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a program to release them back into the wild. Today there are more than 400 California condors, about half of which are flying free over California, Arizona and Mexico.

For many observers, this turnaround is a triumph of conservation. But that recovery is deceptive, the study authors said; it persists only because of intensive management of the birds.

Field biologists track the condors daily, and each is captured biannually for a thorough exam and blood tests. Often, Smith said, those tests turn up lead and the animals are then sent to the Los Angeles Zoo for a heavy-metal-removal treatment called chelation.

For years, researchers have been building a case that lead ammunition is poisoning the condors. The issue has pitted conservationists against hunters' rights groups such as the National Rifle Assn., which calls the connection "unfounded" on its website and has fought attempts to remove lead from ammunition. The NRA did not return a request for comment for this story.
weo
User avatar
Alrai
Baby Gecko
Posts: 1109
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 7:05 pm
Contact:

Re: Lead acutely threatens California condor population, stu

Post by Alrai »

The birds must be cared for and detoxed by humans because other humans are filling them with toxins! This s simply another animal suffering from the inability of humanity to compromise, even in the face of obvious fault.
I do hope that significant evidence is gathered, and then published in such a way that change, even if forced, occurs. I would love to see legislation created punishing bullets left in animal carcasses, if that is proven to be the cause of such heavy toxic metal contents.
"Always be present."
-?
Post Reply