The recent proposal to ban the use of lead bullets by deer and varmint hunters within the range of the endangered California condor is being hotly contested, and for good reason. (For full details CLICK HERE.)

First of all, one has to wonder just how many deer and varmints are actually harvested by hunters in condor country. Then, since most bullets pass through the animals that are shot, one has to wonder how many bullets are actually being left behind. Since hunters are packing out any deer taken (either whole or quartered) for meat processing, I can’t help but think that the actual number of bullets left behind in gut piles by deer hunters must be infinitesimally small.

Even assuming the highly unlikely scenario that every gut pile left behind contained a bullet, how many condors are actually going to feed on those gut piles? And of those feeding, how many are actually going to ingest a bullet? This, in turn, begs the question: How many bullets does a condor have to ingest before its health is negatively impacted?