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I guess they're thinking is that the accumulation of lost sinkers will accumulate to the point of contaminating the environment with too much lead.
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Take Action Now! Protect your right to fish.

Cabela's
Protect Your Right to Fish! Take Action Now!

September 2, 2010

Dear Cabela's Customer:

Occasionally, an issue of such importance arises we feel it necessary to contact our loyal customers. With our fishing rights at stake, this is such an issue.

On August 23, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was petitioned by the Center for Biological Diversity and others to ban lead from ammunition and fishing tackle, including sinkers, jigs, weighted fly lines and components containing lead, such as brass and ballast in lures, spinners, stick baits and other fishing products.

On August 27, the EPA denied the petition regarding ammunition, but let stand the petition to ban lead in fishing tackle and has opened a short period for taking public comment.

Such a ban would cause prices of fishing products to skyrocket. Alternative metals can cost from six to 15 times more than lead, and most do not perform as well. For many, fishing would no longer be the affordable sport it is now.

Please join Cabela's and Keep America Fishing in opposing this ban by submitting your comments to the EPA no later than September 15, 2010. You can easily do so by clicking here.

It is a fast and easy way to assure your opinion is heard.

Cabela's is working in conjunction with the American Sportfishing Association and Keep America Fishing to protect our tradition and heritage of fishing.

Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

Cabela's
Take Action Now!
Cabela's American Sportfishing Association Keep America Fishing
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Not sure what your point is, but having worked in wildlife rehab centers, i can tell you that lead shot and sinkers etc is a huge problem in all types of birds that accidentally or deliberately injest them as well as in the predators or scavengers that feed on other lead poisoning victims. I have cared for trumpeter swans and other water fowl, herons, and even an eagle with lead poisoning from injested lead. It's expensive, difficult, and discouraging and entirely preventable. I agree with the ban on lead ammo and sinkers and would expect the same from anyone that purports to care for wildlife and the environment.

I just don't see it. Seems you have more firsthand experience. I see the various fishing leaders as well as plastic containers (litter) as a much greater threat to wildlife. For that matter, all the pollution that washes from our roadways into our waterways, as well as the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers from our green spaces is much more a general threat to wildlife.

I do not know what the normal lead concentration in the environment is...what toxic concentration is or how much lead has increased in the environment from fishing tackle lost.

As far as game goes, we have been eating game shot with lead shot for as long as I know. Have never heard of any detrimental accumulation in Humans from ingestion of game animals taken by lead shot.

Admit I'm not a big fan of waterfowl "foul", but haven't seen any population crashes. Especially in domestic birds like Swans. I consider them invasive nuisance animals. They seem to be doing very well.

Appreciate your comments and would like to hear more. I'm not opposed to learning and/or changing my opinion due to a better understanding of the facts.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Some things just don’t get out about how bad some of this stuff is. But a lot of this stuff I want to see the science before we act. Here in California we have a lot of problems with lead. Condors die if they eat something as small as a 22 bullet. I worked on a hwy widening project where the workers had to have a baseline lead test and have blood tests all through the project because of the lead contamination in the dirt along the road from cars that used to burn leaded gas. But I’m still not convinced that lead sinkers cause any real problems. Once its been in water it gets a oxidized coating on it that seals it. Just my thoughts.
Michael Luhrs

I gotta go with the ban on this one. Look at what lead in paint does in older homes. I wonder what gastroliths made of lead do in birds and crocs.

I agree. Roadways and mining. Mining is number one I think. Especially out West.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

The problem is with it being actually ingested and the problem has been documented in other countries as well. The oxidized coating doesn't hold up to being ingested and processed through the gizzard and digestive tract.

Some examples..
a citation for alligators http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-7345.1998.tb00661.x/abstract

abstract for snapping turtle http://www.jstor.org/pss/20079497

abstract for small mammals and frogs http://www.springerlink.com/content/t80964r7727vpl02/

Abstract http://www.jstor.org/pss/20460274

abstract http://www.jstor.org/pss/3799902

full article (look at references for more citations)
http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/17/3/423.pdf

full article http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/31/2/268.pdf

abstract http://www.springerlink.com/content/j3h555nk1308775k/

'As far as game goes, we have been eating game shot with lead shot for as long as I know. Have never heard of any detrimental accumulation in Humans from ingestion of game animals taken by lead shot. '

I assumed most people chewed their food well enough to detect the lead shot and spit it out. I forgot about all the toothless people in appalacia that have to gulp down chunks of meat like monitors. Birds deliberately swallow hard pebble-like objects and retain them in their gizzards for long periods. The action of the leadshot grinding itself into microscopic pieces that dissolve and are absorbed in the blood in high concentrations is what causes lead poisoning. Most lead poisoning cases are too far gone to save by the time they are discovered. Most are never discovered and die in the wild, are predated and scavenged and the lead goes up the food chain to claim other victims. At this point any species of scavenger (having a gizzard or not) is succeptible because once a bird reaches the point of lead debilitation, the concentration of dissolved lead in the tissues is high enough to be toxic to whatever feeds on it.

I cant give you any statistics, but you seem able to do your own research. Start with wildlife rehab centers or state wildlife agencies.

"I forgot about all the toothless people in appalacia that have to gulp down chunks of meat like monitors."

Wow...the rest of what you had to say (I can't remember what it was) may have been worthy of consideration, until you felt it necessary to insult an entire geographic slice of our population. Having been to appalacia, I can tell you that there are some really sweet, caring and fully toothed people there. And quite frankly, the ones without teeth that I met didn't resemble monitor lizards in the least when eating, and were generally good folk as well.

Just a suggestion for future reference, but this type of comment detracts from a debate. Once I read that statement, the rest of whatever it was that you had to say kinda went out the window for me.

Just my opinion, and probably overpriced at $.02.

Mark
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uncommonboa.com

This has everything to do with trying to limit the lead supply to try and prevent people from making their own ammo. It has been covered in the newspapers about the ammo shortage but those stories only scratch the surface of how much ammo is being stockpiled by people out there. There are a lot of unemployed people out there and a lot of them are very discontent and from what I have been hearing lately a LOT of them are stock piling ammo. I play in bands and people in bars like to talk when they get drunk a good bunch of it is bs but there comes a point when you here things enough you realize there is a little more to it than bs. I'm just some lizard keeping guitar playing fool so there is no way in hell that the feds aren't already aware of what I'm hearing out there.
It's actually a bit disturbing which is bad coming from me as I live in the woods. But anyway enough about the unhappy constituency, the fact is that lead thing has nothing to do with conservation.

I don't think that is the case as reports of the problem in game birds stretch all the way back into the 1950s. This is not a new problem but one that has actually been getting worse over time.

Lead is pretty easy to purchase as it has other uses.. and pig lead is relatively cheap.

See also abstract http://www.springerlink.com/content/b9hl44f6n0ll86pj/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v6v7qr8071287m14/

Ed

I don't hunt game and I've never owned a gun, so I'm not up on this stuff, as far as game birds go. I can see how birds would ingest shot for their crop. From what Texas Parks and Wildlife says, hunters are fewer and fewer every year, at least in Texas.
Personally, I think outboard motor pollution, terminal [fishing] tackle, and all the other pollution sources I've mentioned would be more critical issues. But I guess not.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Hi John,

A reduction in hunters will slow the problem down (provided there aren't an increase in fishing sinkers ending up in the same area) as the shot tends to stay around in the enviroment (as noted above, a oxidized layer forms reducing breakdown in the enviroment). As the birds look for and ingest stones of the appropriate size for use in thier gizzards, the shot is directly ingested.
This is why it can take a long time for it to fully resolve in areas where hunting has been reduced as the shot needs to be buried to a depth where it is not longer accessiable to the wildlife.

Ed

Lead paint flaking from military barracks on Midway Island is currently eliminating large numbers of Laysan albatross chicks. Laysans are SPECTACULAR birds and I think its quite telling that even the most common albatross species in Alaskan waters is threatened. I think some really smart person with a phd should put graduate students to work out on Midway with paint chipping devices. Have fun in the tropical sun and learn that doing the right thing takes a lot of hard work. Might just get them ready for desk jobs fighting for the environment.

I have been there. Have spent years at sea in most places around the World...men...men...men...men... Oh well, it was worth it.
That is so weird. Seems like they could easily scrape and refinish the barracks and sift the nearby sand for particles. Why not so simple? How embedded is the lead into the environment, anyway? First need to study the problem to death, or what?
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Hi John,

There has apparently been some remidation at the island. How much I'm not sure but there is at least on study on the lead issue with respect to the distance from remidated buildings.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es026272e

Ed

I know the problem is being studied and remediation has begun. My only point is that the problem is like any other, isolate the variable and get to work on it. Would not have to use a bunch of tax dollars if we put to work college students. They want to learn and learning is hard work. Give them credit for "work abroad" or whatever you wish to call it. Marine biology students have to get out into the world before they go to work in a lab. Get them to roll up their sleeves, the universities get a cut and one of my favorite species of bird gets helped. The students could snorkel with reef sharks and sea turtles during their down time and it could be one heck of a party. Easy for me to speak since I am a whale hugging new age hippy, minus the hair and tie dye. And for the record, I never have liked the Grateful Dead.

There are actually a few published studies on the lead issue on Midway including some within the last ten years.

See for example
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WDS-45F4DY5-2M&_user=10&_coverDate=03/31/2000&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1450824172&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cd6fb670e9a71be79c5c6162a469e8f7&searchtype=a

Ed

I forgot to mention: I am no expert but source points of lead contamination is probably what people should be most concerned with. Vulnerable species ingesting lead in specific areas or at specific times of life. Isolate the source and clean it up. Either that or we can just hope species will adjust and that we can live without the ones that cannot. Just my opinion, which seems to get me into more trouble than it does to get me out of it. I am out.

Hey, it's all good fellas. I'm learning a lot.

I agree with the intern hands on for students.

Also think something like the CCC in about due. So much we can do and so many out of work people can gain some self-respect and dignity and at least a stipend to live on, doing some labor intensive environmental work.

Straight pay, by the day. keep it local. Don't bog it down with red tape, rules and regulations, complexities. Keep it simple.

Efficient, immediate results. No handouts. Infrastructure and environmental improvements.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Well if I remember correctly a lot of the research dollars used in these sorts of studies are handed out at some level from the goverment. Which would include compensating them for the credit hours. When I punched the search parameters into the google scholar option for Midway lead and albatross I was surprised at the number of papers that popped up.

One of the ones that is also of concern to me is the leachate of lead from roads (from the old leaded gas) which is then taken up by animals living in roadside ditches and passed up the food chain http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a905859499

I've actually been surprised the CCC corps hasn't been dusted off.. it would be one way of dealing with all of the infrastructure problems (a lot of which were built by the old CCC corps).

Ed

Well yes. I wonder if that has anything to do with the honey bee die-offs. Probably not. Tracing the leachate through the food chain would be very interesting.

On a different subject, I see our Nation's roadways as the number one vector for the spread of Fire Ants. Prime habitat and a continual schmorgesborg of roadkill. A veritable pristinely manicured Hymenopteran highway, lined with all the fast food eateries an Ant could want.

They might make a good subject study on the roadway Lead in their systems.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Are you guys kidding-as great an idea as that is (and I do think it's a great idea), can you imagine how it would be demagogued by the right? I can see it now:

"CCC proposal-Obama and Socialists in Congress try to take us down the RED road once again!"

"Yet another Government handout to waste our tax money"

"The deficit balloons while the government pays people to lean on shovels!"

It's sad but true, nothing worthwhile can be done in this country under the present gridlocked system.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase and Striped Desert California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

I agree Brad. Sometimes I think O'bama...there, I made him Irish, Black Irish, of course.

Sometimes I think he shows little political courage and defers to the safer approach. But sometimes he blunders politically, with unnecessary idealistic speak. He should probably run things by me first, I guess.

Not good at picking his battles. Go figure.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Yeah Obama blew it with not instituting a "new" New Deal, or something like it. For all my complaining, Mr Bush set aside the largest area of tropical coral reefs and atolls this country has ever seen. I think work keeps people healthier than medical insurance. Now I am out.

It seems every good instinct Obama had during his campaign, everything he did right-he started doing the opposite in office. Maybe the very act of becoming President makes one a little bit crazy.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase and Striped Desert California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles