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Get the Lead Out, So the California Condor, North America’s Largest Bird, Won't Just Exist on the Back of the Quarter
By Pedro Nava
Member, California State Assembly
Today only 140 free-flying California condors exist on this earth. They are the largest living thing flying over North America. You can still see a few of them near Hopper Mountain in Ventura County and in parts of Big Sur. Ten thousand years ago, soaring on their 9 foot wingspan, they once flew over saber toothed cats and woolly mammoths. Their range was all across America. We have spent millions of dollars in restoration efforts and much energy but still the condor remains in jeopardy.
Unless we eliminate the number one threat to the free-flying California condor, lead ammunition, someday the only place you will see this magnificent bird is on the face of our California quarter.
Condors are scavengers. They only eat dead things. The remaining wild condors eat the lead left in the remains of animals that have been shot with lead bullets. Most of the time, the lead bullets don’t remain intact, they shatter into tiny shards. Condors mistake the minute amounts of lead for calcium-rich bone fragments they require.
The resulting lead poisoning then induces a slow and agonizing death. The condor’s digestive system is paralyzed and they can die of starvation, become disoriented, collide with power lines, electrocute themselves or drown.
If a child had the same level of lead as is commonly found in condors, that child would be rushed to the hospital.
The fatal effects of lead are well documented. That’s why we have taken lead out of paint, water pipes, and gasoline. Nationwide, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service won’t let you use lead shot while hunting waterfowl. The lead poisons waterfowl and eagles.
If you want to protect the condor, it is easy, take out the lead. I have introduced legislation, Assembly Bill (AB) 821 that will require the use of non-lead ammunition in condor territory. Many hunters have already made the switch to non-lead ammunition. They will tell you it works just fine.
Opponents of my bill claim there is a lack of science to require such a switch and that only voluntary programs are necessary. It wasn’t that long ago that some folks didn’t believe in global warming either.
Multiple studies documenting the correlation of lead in condors to lead from ammunition have been published; the most recent used a "fingerprinting" technique based on the unique isotope ratios found in different sources of lead, matching the lead in blood samples from condors to the lead in ammunition (Environmental Science & Technology, August 30, 2006).
We know there is lead naturally in the environment. That is not what we are talking about. Caged condors have low lead levels and the type of lead we expect to find in nature. In free-flying condors, blood lead levels are higher. In the most severely lead-poisoned birds, the blood lead matched exactly the composition of the lead in ammunition.
Condors who reach toxic lead levels have to undergo chelation therapy. It is a painful, invasive procedure necessary to save their lives.
Voluntary lead reduction programs for condors don’t work. The science shows that. AB 821 will require the use of lead free ammunition that performs as well as, or better than, lead bullets in condor territory.
Together we can help, with your support AB 821 will remove the single largest immediate threat to the California condor by removing lead ammunition in its habitat starting in January 2008. Please write, call or email my office to register your support.
Assemblymember Nava represents Santa Barbara and Ventura County. He is the Chair of both the Assembly Transportation Committee, and the Joint Committee on Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security. He also serves on the California Ocean Protection Council, charged with coordinating and improving protection and management of California's ocean and coastal resources; the Little Hoover Commission, and the California Emergency Council, an official advisory body to the Governor. With the highest coastal resource protection voting record the Sierra Club, the League for Coastal Protection, and the Santa Barbara Chapter of the California League of Conservation Voters named him an "Environmental Hero."
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