Outdoors: Don't let a bullet kill more than once

Ed Clark knows that hunters can be resistant to change, whether it's wearing blaze orange or changing the composition of the bullets they use. And he's well aware that members of the hunting community bristle, often rightfully, he'd say, when they feel like environmental or wildlife conservation groups are telling them how to better go about their favorite pastime.

Clark knows this because he's one of them. The president of The Wildlife Center of Virginia (WCV) is a lifelong target shooter and hunter. He has an indoor range in the basement of his house and a 100-yard rifle range outside his mountain home in the Blue Ridge.

"I have a very large and diverse gun collection ... I used to shoot in competition," he said.

Clark takes pains to make this clear because he wants hunters to understand that neither he nor his organization is anti-hunting — far from it. "We defend legal, regulated hunting and we work closely with the game department."

But the fact is, hunters all over Virginia will kill more than whitetail deer this fall with the bullets they fire to harvest that most popular of game animals. And the vast majority of those secondary deaths are preventable.

On November 13, the WCV brought in a bald eagle from Caroline County that displayed the classic symptoms of lead toxicity — lethargy, inability to stand, tremors and poor muscle control. Blood tests showed lead levels too high for the lab's testing equipment to measure. Despite chelation treatments to try to cleanse its blood, the animal died the next day.

"This appears to have been a classic case of poisoning as a result of the ingestion of lead shot," veterinarian Dr. Dave McRuer concluded.

Of the 29 bald eagles the WCV treated up to that point in 2011, this was the third brought in with lead toxicity as its primary complaint. Fourteen others showed measurable levels of lead. That's over half with lead in their systems.

Clark explained that even in cases where a bullet passes through a whitetail, as much as 20 percent of it, in the form of shards, can remain in the animal. In the eastern part of the state, where hunting deer with shotguns and buckshot is more common, the pellets are even more likely to remain in the deer.

"So when somebody guts a deer and lays that gutpile on the ground, that gutpile has lead in it," Clark explained.

If a wounded deer is never found, the lead will remain in it as well, waiting for scavengers like bald eagles and vultures to find it. The same goes for doves or rabbits or any animal that is never recovered. Dead animals will eventually be scavenged by some other member of the animal kingdom, and if it's a bird, the results are often dire and irreversible.

"(A bird's) digestive system is such that the lead seems to get into their circulatory system and nervous system a whole lot faster than it does in mammals," said Clark.

Most of the hunters I know make every effort to find animals they've shot. One hundred percent recovery of all harvested or wounded animals is the goal, even if it's not really possible. But there are other actions hunters can take to reduce the possibility that lead enters anything but what they shoot at.

The Wildlife Center recommends burying the entrails produced by field dressing deer. Short of that, Clark said, "just covering the gutpile with brush so that it's not readily available to a bird like an eagle is a relatively simple act and…it's just common courtesy in the field."

Of course, the easier option is to do what duck hunters were forced to do when lead shot for waterfowl hunting was outlawed in 1991: buy ammo that doesn't contain lead. Companies now make bullets out of bismuth, copper and alloys. Some of those loads are more expensive than traditional ones, but it's not as if every shot a hunter takes has to be with that ammo, just the ones aimed at an animal.

By all means, Clark said, take all your target practice with lead shot, just keep a few copper bullets for that 8-pointer at the edge of the cornfield.

"A 160-grain bullet is a 160-grain bullet whether it's made out of lead or made out of copper. I've been using the same box of (copper) .30-06 bullets (for hunting) for five years."

Limiting guns and ammo is a loaded topic, no doubt about it. Hunters and gun enthusiasts tend to harbor a deep mistrust of anyone who broaches the topic. But, Clark said, "if hunters want to head off the criticism and insulate themselves from an attack on the availability of lead ammo, then they need to do some things to minimize the clear and undeniable effects of leaving this lead lying around in the field.

"I have been a hunter all my life. … The bottom line on it is, if you are a serious, committed sportsman, you don't want your bullet to kill more than once. That's what it boils down to."