If it was identifiable, I'm willing to bet it hadn't been digested enough to cause issue - probably because it was a .22 and easier to move through the gullet, vs. small shot that would've acted like sand or fine gravel and stayed in the digestive tract. Lead bloodlevels to be concerned about are 10μg/dL - 10 micrograms per deciLiter. I would be fascinated to see what the lead levels in that meat are.
OK, this is getting boring, and you're making it too easy. (May I suggest you look up the Socratic method?) I probably won't continue with this much longer -- I don't honestly think you're listening. Nothing personal, just how I feel.
10 micrograms/dL (mcg/dL) is the suggested human pediatric actionable level, based primarily upon developmental issues. The adult actionable level is 25 mcg/dL (CDC) or 20 mcg/dL (FDA). (
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=7&po=8 ) It's been suggested as late as this year that the childhood level be downgraded to 5 mcg/dL, but there are studies that indicate there may not be sufficient scientific evidence to support this.
Lead is found in the environment in a wide variety of compounds, both organic and inorganic. ( Grant, L.D. (2009). "Lead and compounds". In Lippmann, M.. Environmental Toxicants: Human Exposures and Their Health Effects, 3rd edition. Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0471793353. ) Organic lead compounds -- such as those formerly used in leaded gasoline, and still found in relatively high concentrations in soil in larger cities and near long-established highways -- readily cross into biological systems through skin and respiratory pathways. ( Kosnett, M.J. (2007). "Heavy metal intoxication and chelators". In Katzung, B.G.. Basic and Clinical Pharmacology. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0071451536. ) (
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000017/p0000017.asp#head002005000000000 ) In the case of the eagle you cited earlier, has there been any determination as to the entry mode of the lead found in that eagle's system? Was it subclinical (lead toxicity) or acute (lead poisoning)? There's a difference; if the eagle did actually die of lead blood/tissue content (and not from a wild-animal reaction to captivity-shock and the treatment itself) it would certainly seem to have been acute.
"Is carrion the only possible source of lead ingestion? No, but it is the most likely (I would assume other sources include sinkers in fish that got away, etc.). And it being from a natural source is
highly unlikely to impossible (since lead needs refining from ore). That pretty much leaves us - presuming otherwise is disingenuous." Right. What is your basis for this statement? How am I to be convinced that I should take your word for it? Particulary since lead can enter the environment by so many pathways, including mining, smelting, pottery glazing, medical/electronic equipment manufacturing, etc, etc. Look it up.
"Lighten up, Francis." Of course I gave you a straw-man argument -- one that has as much basis in provable fact as the one offered in the OP. I was being a bit of a smart-arse on purpose. As far as the straw-man bit goes, you gave me the same in reverse --
as did the OP article cited. I was speaking in general of animals killed on the highways -- and I could infer by devious mathematics in the X plus y, therefore z mode you employ, that I see so many more than ever deer, possums, coons and other assorted critters (groundhogs are excepted from this argument of course, as they are genetically predisposed, by all the available evidence, to merge with pavement) and extrapolating from the total of miles of highway in the continental US (leaving out, for the sake of I-don't-feel-like-doing-the-math, dirt roads, which are not as easily measurable) that we are collectively killing BAZILLIONS of animals!!! (Could that by any stretch be how that 20-million birds number in the OP article was
manufactured arrived at?) You respond with the argument that you haven't hit an animal since <insert year here>. Taking the argument conveniently from macro to micro offers no basis for making a decision with macro effect. It is, however, a tactic conveniently and repeatedly used by hoplophobes, various "green" organizations, and others, who rely upon emotion rather than fact. The article I quoted uses the same methodology, in reverse.
Yes, I'm pushing this out to the edges a bit, but only as illustration. The article quoted (in full) in the OP only offers
one concrete and verifiable bit of evidence, that of the condor treated and released. It also offers very large numbers, with no citation as to the source and verifiability of those numbers. And I don't believe 'em. Who counted those 20 million birds, and did all the requisite lab work? And verified the mode of entry into the systems of those birds? That's a rather large undertaking, and not a cheap one.
The OP article asks us to make a macro change based upon one verifiable bit of micro evidence and some unsubstantiated large numbers. I think it's a pig in a poke.
All that said . . . I'm an animal lover my own self, and don't ever want to knowingly make any critter suffer unnecessarily. I also unapologetically love to eat a few of 'em. Just my own silly opinion, but I do believe we pay mother nature back for what we take, and that we have a responsibility to continue to discover/rediscover our balance point within the world in which we live. I just don't think this is the one I'm going to hang my hat on.
