Now we need to ban the use of lead bullets for hunting.

For centuries, lead has been the ideal metal for bullets because of its weight, density and availability. Where I live in Virginia, nearby lead mines supplied much of the ore for the bullets used in the Revolutionary War.

Today w e have the technology to make highly effective bullets with other, safer metals like copper, and this technology has answered many hunter objections. These bullets are also lethal and accurate, though admittedly more expensive .

In California, hunters have been required to use non-lead bullets for the past 10 years in territory frequented by the critically endangered California condor, which faced a significant threat from lead poisoning that continues. Next July, California will become the first state to ban the use of lead bullets to hunt wildlife, though about a half-dozen states already require some form of “nontoxic ammunition” for hunting in certain circumstances.

The Obama administration, in its waning days in 2016, imposed a ban on the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands and waters, arguing that exposure to them “has resulted in harmful effects to fish and wildlife species.” But President Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, quickly rescinded the ban, which was opposed by the National Rifle Association and hunting groups, writing that the order was “not mandated by any existing statutory or regulatory requirement.”

He was wrong to do that. And no, fellow hunters, this is not about taking away our guns or protecting Bambi or outlawing hunting. This is about protecting and ensuring the health of the wild world on which we depend.

And not just the health of the wild world. One 2009 study in the journal PLOS One found that people risked exposure to lead when they ate venison from deer killed with standard lead-based rifle bullets and processed under normal commercial procedures. That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a study that among 736 people in North Dakota tested for lead, those who ate wild game had 50 percent more lead in their blood and those who did not. Critics at the time complained these were based on small sample sizes, but the co-author of the C.D.C. study nonetheless recommended that pregnant women should not eat wild game.

In the United States, hunters number over 11 million . We all have a responsibility to protect what we love. To protect our children, we outlawed lead paint. To keep the air we breathe healthy, we got rid of lead in our gasoline. We should do the same with bullets to protect our wildlife. The lead has got to go.



Jim Minick teaches at Augusta University and is the author of five books.

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