PinnedAndRecessed
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http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/9628753p-10513324c.html
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A coalition of environmentalists, American Indians and hunters is asking regulators to issue an emergency ban on lead ammunition in the condor's feeding territory and eventually statewide.
"This is imperative to get this going. We feel this is an emergency issue for the condor," said Jeff Miller, a researcher with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups filing the petition with the state Fish and Game Commission.
The move comes 18 months after state wildlife managers started a voluntary plan to protect California condors from lead poisoning. Separate studies for the state and federal wildlife agencies last year found condor lead poisoning increased during the fall hunting season.
A problem has been hunters who leave an estimated 30,000 unburied carcasses or entrails across the condor's range, which are eaten by the scavengers.
But state condor preservation officials said survival is at an all-time high. Also, hunting regulations aren't up for routine review until 2007, leaving it uncertain if they will consider the plea from the activists who say traditional ammunition is too toxic. The next commission meeting is in February.
"We were losing a half-dozen to a dozen a year either to death or having to bring them in (to captivity) for bad behavior or something," said Fish and Game Department biologist Ron Jurek, a member of the California Condor Recovery Team. But none has died in 14 months. "We've never had such good survival. Things are looking up now."
Part is due to better management of the condors, including keeping them away from carcasses killed with lead bullets, Jurek said. Most condors are tracked with radio collars, allowing managers to spot sick birds and recapture them for treatment. And veterinarians are better able to treat acute lead poisoning, as they are doing now with a condor in Arizona.
But as more condors are released and forage naturally over as much a 150-mile range, they'll encounter more lead-laced carcasses, said the environmental group's Miller. "We're going to see lead mortality go way up."
The wild condor population dropped to just 15 in 1984, but the population in California now tops 100. About 10 condors since 1995 have died or undergone intense treatment for lead poisoning in California, Jurek said.
Nonlead shotgun ammunition already is required nationwide for hunting waterfowl. But wildlife agencies in Arizona, Utah and California - which each have reintroduced populations of the giant bird - hope a voluntary program will work without requiring an outright ban on lead bullets.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A coalition of environmentalists, American Indians and hunters is asking regulators to issue an emergency ban on lead ammunition in the condor's feeding territory and eventually statewide.
"This is imperative to get this going. We feel this is an emergency issue for the condor," said Jeff Miller, a researcher with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups filing the petition with the state Fish and Game Commission.
The move comes 18 months after state wildlife managers started a voluntary plan to protect California condors from lead poisoning. Separate studies for the state and federal wildlife agencies last year found condor lead poisoning increased during the fall hunting season.
A problem has been hunters who leave an estimated 30,000 unburied carcasses or entrails across the condor's range, which are eaten by the scavengers.
But state condor preservation officials said survival is at an all-time high. Also, hunting regulations aren't up for routine review until 2007, leaving it uncertain if they will consider the plea from the activists who say traditional ammunition is too toxic. The next commission meeting is in February.
"We were losing a half-dozen to a dozen a year either to death or having to bring them in (to captivity) for bad behavior or something," said Fish and Game Department biologist Ron Jurek, a member of the California Condor Recovery Team. But none has died in 14 months. "We've never had such good survival. Things are looking up now."
Part is due to better management of the condors, including keeping them away from carcasses killed with lead bullets, Jurek said. Most condors are tracked with radio collars, allowing managers to spot sick birds and recapture them for treatment. And veterinarians are better able to treat acute lead poisoning, as they are doing now with a condor in Arizona.
But as more condors are released and forage naturally over as much a 150-mile range, they'll encounter more lead-laced carcasses, said the environmental group's Miller. "We're going to see lead mortality go way up."
The wild condor population dropped to just 15 in 1984, but the population in California now tops 100. About 10 condors since 1995 have died or undergone intense treatment for lead poisoning in California, Jurek said.
Nonlead shotgun ammunition already is required nationwide for hunting waterfowl. But wildlife agencies in Arizona, Utah and California - which each have reintroduced populations of the giant bird - hope a voluntary program will work without requiring an outright ban on lead bullets.