Lead in ammunition and fishing gear is an under-recognized science denial problem
Sam Totoni for the Environmental Health News
A bald eagle with blood lead levels greater than 65 micrograms per deciliter died after a few minutes in care at Blue Ridge Wildlife Center in Virginia. (Credit: Blue Ridge Wildlife Center)
This
is part 1 of a 2-part series, Mislead on Lead. See part 2, Pushing back on lead ammo and
fishing tackle misinformation.
Hunting
and fishing have a science denial problem. Special interest groups are
misleading hunters and anglers—some of the country's proudest
conservationists—into poisoning wildlife. Hunters are also being misled into
risking the health of their families and recipients of donated meat. Even
small amounts of lead affect nearly every organ in the body; impacts include
permanent changes to the brain and miscarriage.
EHN
investigated hundreds of claims from webpages, documents, and testimony, and
found that groups including the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), the
National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and the National Rifle Association
(NRA) spread misinformation and engage in science denialism most of the time
they communicate about lead ammunition or fishing tackle.
Lead
in hunting and fishing
Lead poisoning of wildlife from ammunition has been documented for more than a century. Raptors and scavenging birds that eat the remains of hunted animals are poisoned by lead fragments embedded in carcasses. Waterfowl and terrestrial game birds, especially species with a muscular gizzard to grind their food, are poisoned by spent lead gunshot. Species impacted include doves, condors, eagles, and vultures.
Lead fishing tackle is well-established as a leading cause of death for common loons and swans, and poses a risk to more than 70 other species of North American wildlife. Nearly 4,400 tons of lead fishing tackle are lost every year in U.S. waterways, according to estimates.
When
hunters or anglers see lead poisoning in wildlife for themselves, it can have
lasting impacts.
Matthew
Freer works at Cornell University, conducting chemical analysis on the livers
of eagles that are found dead. He told EHN his use of lead ammunition and
fishing tackle permanently changed after finding lethal levels of lead in the
eagles’ livers: “I said, 'I’m not doing it anymore. I’ll still hunt and fish,
but I’ll do it more conscientiously.' I want my children to be able to enjoy
the outdoors, and if they want to go hunting, not to worry about getting
poisoned or poisoning something else.”
But
most hunters and anglers will never witness how lead impacts wildlife, and a
science denial campaign is being waged to make sure they keep using it.
Science denial
Science
denial campaigns aren't really about science. They're
usually about regulation. Cognitive scientists identify science denial by a group
of strategies used to create the appearance of a legitimate debate on a matter
of scientific consensus.
The
tobacco industry used these strategies to undermine
proposed health policies, and their campaign created an enduring playbook. Five
categories of denialist techniques are recognized: fake
experts, cherry picking, impossible expectations, conspiracy theories, and
logical fallacies. EHN found all these tactics in messaging from groups aiming
to keep hunters and anglers using lead.
Groups
engaging in denialism include the NSSF, the firearm
industry trade association; the NRA, which functions as
a corporate lobbying group for
the firearm industry; and the CSF, an organization that provides support and
guidance for three distinct caucuses operating at both the federal and state
level: The Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, the Governors Sportsmen’s Caucus,
and the National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses.
Fake experts and cherry picking
In
this tactic, fake experts are presented as experts, yet represent views
inconsistent with well-established knowledge. Tobacco giant Philip Morris used fake experts to claim that
second-hand smoke is safe to breathe. In the case of lead ammunition, the
tactic is used to claim that fragments of lead ammunition—often made from
recycled car batteries— are safe to eat.
EHN reported previously
that lead ammunition can contaminate hunted meat and increase the blood lead
levels of humans who consume it. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “there
is no identified threshold or safe level of lead in blood.” Scientists have
linked lead ammunition to human blood lead levels ranging from less than 5 to
more than 70 micrograms per deciliter.
In
April 2021, the CSF wrote a letter to the Maine
Legislature’s Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in opposition to a
lead ammunition ban. What appears to be a quote from a scientific source
indicating that lead-contaminated meat does not pose a human health risk is
actually an article in Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine. In claiming lead
ammunition is safe to eat, an NRA-run site also references a report
that is not peer-reviewed, not written by toxicologists, and inconsistent with
scientific literature on eating lead.
This
strategy also attempts to discredit established experts. In October 2020, an article on
NSSF’s website warned readers not to believe the findings of a peer-reviewed
study on lead-contamination of hunted meat. Given Harper, co-author of
the study published in
the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, told EHN that
NSSF’s characterization was “filled with much misinformation.”
In
attempts to discredit the entire body of evidence on eating lead-contaminated
meat, the CSF, NSSF, and NRA repeatedly cite
the same study and
misrepresent its findings. This cherry picking allows misinformation campaigns
to selectively focus on data that supports what they want—in this case,
continued use of lead. Big Tobacco used the same strategy.
Impossible
expectations
The tobacco industry’s PR campaign insisted on nearly impossible criteria for “sound science” and dismissed the scientific consensus as “junk science.” An internal industry memo strategizing how to portray smoking to the public once famously explained, “Doubt is our product”.
Despite
scientific consensus statements to
replace lead ammunition and scientific reviews recognizing
fishing tackle as a serious environmental problem, the CSF writes in
their 2021 brief for
policymakers that efforts to regulate lead ammunition and fishing tackle “are
generally not based on sound science.” The “sound science” term is also used by
the NSSF and NRA.
The
tactic is part of a larger category of creating impossible expectations.
The CSF, NRA, and NSSF claim that
regulatory decisions about lead require proof of impacts to the entire
population of a species.
However,
the scientific consensus on replacing lead ammunition does not hinge on
demonstrated population-level impacts or wildlife management; it is based on
the “…overwhelming evidence for the toxic effects of lead in
humans and wildlife, even at very low exposure levels.” Scientists
who study the impacts of lead ammunition have concluded “no more evidence is required. The same
rationales that were used to remove lead from gasoline, paints, and household
items should be applied to lead-based hunting ammunition.”
Carrol
Henderson, recently retired after more than 40 years as Minnesota Department of
Natural Resources’ non-game wildlife supervisor, told EHN, “there’s nothing
that says you have to kill enough creatures to have a population-level impact
in order to stop using lead.”
These
demands require spending millions of research dollars that don’t exist, he
added.
Population-level impacts are also difficult to document because sick birds often hide and are quickly scavenged when they die.
Mark
Pokras, a wildlife veterinarian and Associate Professor Emeritus at Tufts
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, co-authored a 2019 scientific review
emphasizing that lead poisoning “is killing large numbers of animals in a
manner that is often prolonged, painful, and cruel.”
He
told EHN that for every animal that dies of lead poisoning, there are many
others that have sublethal effects.“Whether it causes heart, kidney,
reproductive, or nervous system problems, there is strong scientific evidence
to show that any quantity of lead can be harmful.”
Olivia
Pea, a veterinarian who worked with the Loon Preservation Committee in New
Hampshire, told EHN that lead can be an underlying cause of death attributed to
collisions: “If they’re showing neurological signs, they can’t be aware of
their body properly; if they’re flying, they’re crashing into things.” Dr. Pea
said that use of nonlead alternatives is consistent with wildlife conservation,
since they prevent needless suffering and death of nontarget species.
While
the NSSF touts their support
for the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, they did not answer
EHN’s request for their position on one of the seven principles of
this model, “Wildlife can only be killed for a legitimate purpose.”
Even
when scientists have been able to demonstrate population-level impacts, the CSF
has denied its existence.
Loon
Preservation Committee biologist Tiffany Grade described a study to EHN that
she authored in the Journal of Wildlife Management in 2017. “We estimated that
over the years of the study, 1989-2012, lead tackle mortality reduced the New
Hampshire loon population by 43%.”
The
detrimental impact of lead fishing tackle on loons in New Hampshire was a
crucial factor in the state’s 2013 ban on the sale and freshwater use of
jigs and sinkers one ounce and smaller.
Yet
the CSF state in their 2021 issue brief, “although
some individual loon deaths have been linked to lead fishing sinkers, there has
been no documented evidence that lead fishing sinkers, of any size, have a
detrimental impact on local or regional loon populations.”
Logical fallacies and conspiracy theories
Tobacco
companies described academic research into the health effects of smoking as
an anti-cigarette conspiracy,
the work of an anti-smoking cartel, and made unsubstantiated predictions about
the impacts of proposed requirements for warning labels on cigarette packages.
This
fallacy is also featured in the most prominent conspiracy theory related to
lead ammunition. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action claims, “Anti-hunting
groups and gun control supporters want lead ammunition banned for hunting to
raise the cost of ammunition and, as a result, to dissuade people from
participating in hunting and acquiring firearms for that purpose.” The CSF website places information about lead
ammunition and tackle bans under the category “Anti-hunting and fishing (Animal
Rights)”. The NSSF says
that conclusions about the impact of lead to the
California Condor are due to “anti-hunting activists”.
The
tactic is effective.
Carol
Holmgren, Executive Director and Principal Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator at
Tamarack Wildlife Center in Saegertown, Pennsylvania, told EHN that the biggest
obstacle to educating hunters about nonlead ammunition has been “misinformation
about an anti-hunting agenda.”
Regarding
claims that requiring nonlead ammunition will drive hunting participation down,
Dr. Pokras said: “It’s demonstrably false. That argument was made in the 50’s,
60’s, 70’s, and 80’s when agencies were considering the adoption of non-toxic
shot for waterfowl, ‘Nobody’s going to be able to hunt anymore.’ It hasn’t
happened.”
Henderson
points out that the 1991 nationwide ban on the use of
lead shot for waterfowl hunting actually created a guaranteed
market and competition among nonlead manufacturers, increasing availability and
decreasing price.
Additional evidence regarding the impact of lead ammunition bans comes from California. In October 2013, Assembly Bill 711 was signed into law, requiring the use of nonlead ammunition when taking any wildlife with a firearm. The statute’s requirements were phased in through 2019. More hunters participated in California’s 2020 hunting season than during each of the previous six seasons.
When
asked for comment, the NSSF told EHN they stand by their position that efforts
to ban lead ammunition are part of a larger goal to ban hunting.
New
Hampshire’s 2013 ban on lead jigs
and sinkers was strongly opposed by the sport fishing industry’s trade
association, the American Sportfishing Association (ASA), a financial supporter
of CSF, who also opposed the
ban.
In
written testimony the ASA
said the ban would “cause the cost of recreational fishing statewide to
increase, thereby negatively affecting participation.”
According
to the owner of New Hampshire’s largest “mom-and-pop” tackle shop, prices did
increase—and so did participation.
“The
cost of fishing has gone up, and the complaining increased, but at the same
time, participation and purchasing increased,” Dale Sandy, owner of The Tackle
Shack, told EHN. As a result of the ban, a bag of split shots increased from
roughly one dollar to four dollars, Sandy said. “I don’t see people not buying
it or giving up fishing because of it. True hunters and fishermen are going to
be your most common-sense environmentalists out there.”
Jennifer
Riley, Director of Veterinary Services at Blue Ridge Wildlife Center in
Virginia, is not optimistic that common sense will prevail: “We can provide all
the education and science there is, but people see it as us trying to take
their guns or being crazy hippies. Ultimately, it's the animals that suffer and
most humans that are eating lead themselves do not realize the damage being caused.”
The
NRA and CSF did not respond to requests for comment.
Part 2: Pushing back on lead ammo misinformation
Lead ammo in hunted meat: Who's
telling hunters and their families ... ›
Health and Environmental
Risks from Lead-based Ammunition ... ›