And there's this. So maybe I am wrong, but I still can't see how this problem with hawks and eagles is happening after so much lead has been removed from the environment.billy.pilgrim wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 9:25 amI don't understand what's going on. I agree that lead shot should be stopped.Vrede too wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 7:59 amOkay, good to know, thanks. Fuck fracking even more than before. Still, fracking's footprint spans a small portion of the nation, and it pollutes more groundwater than surface water. I can't see it poisoning half or more of our eagles.billy.pilgrim wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 1:38 amI still suspect this article may not be the real story. I just checked and lead is commonly used in fracking. It's listed as one of the 6 known worst chemicals used.
https://youtu.be/jhyaYYgc5zs
but there's been such a huge reduction in consumer caused lead pollution over the past 40 years, including lead shot pellets, that its hard for me to accept this explanation for lead poisoned eagles.
As a contributing factor - absolutely.
The primary cause of something new happening to the eagles after their recent comeback must also be something new - like fracking.
Don't pollutants from fracking into ground water find their way into fresh water streams and rivers and then into fresh water fish? Eagles are huge fish eaters.
Aren't the examples in the article from the Midwest? (If I remember correctly) If so, then you are right about field dressing introducing lead to the food supply there. But even then, wouldn't feeding on offal be a bigger problem for buzzards and coyotes rather than eagles who mostly catch live prey?
Field dressing is rare in the South and likely the entire East. Roads and cars are just too close. You've probably seen pictures and even scenes in movies where Bubbas drive around with an undressed deer strapped across the hot hood of a car or truck.
I think that the quicker we eliminate lead shot, the closer we'll be to identifying the real cause. My uneducated guess is that it won't be lead shot. Since it's already been reduced, why this uptick?
Bush removed fracking from any clean water oversight regulations. Obama and Biden seem to love how it makes their economy look. The mainstream media mostly ignores it. It appears here to stay and it will cause great harm the environment and as happened with DDT, the large birds of prey will go first while the industry blames others with paid "scientific" report after financed fake sciency report.
Until then, we all have only our opinions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/us/b ... =url-share