NEWTOWN, Conn.–In response to an announcement today regarding a National Parks Service program encouraging hunters to voluntarily switch to alternative ammunition, the National Shooting Sports Foundation rejected NPS’s categorization of traditional ammunition as a health threat. NSSF is offering to work with the National Park Service to develop measures to educate hunters about steps they can take to prevent scavengers from ingesting lead fragments of spent traditional ammunition. The park service is proposing to ban, at a minimum, the use of lead bullets, shot and sinkers in the park system by NPS personnel.

While no scientific evidence supports restricting the use of traditional ammunition containing lead components, the firearms industry believes that establishing voluntary measures is a more reasoned step than banning traditional ammunition, a drastic policy decision unsupported by science. NPS has raised concerns that lead bullet fragments found in game meat could cause lead poisoning in humans, a charge not borne out in scientific studies, including a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

“While we’re not opposed to voluntary measures, we maintain there is no need for them,” said Steve Sanetti, president of NSSF, the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. “The firearms industry supports science-based decisions about wildlife management. Under current regulations, there is no scientific evidence showing that the health of wildlife populations and humans is at risk from the use of traditional ammunition.”

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NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) – the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry – is applauding the decision by the North Dakota Community Action Partnership to resume accepting at food banks across the state donations of venison harvested by hunters using traditional ammunition.

“We applaud The North Dakota Community Action Partnership’s common sense decision, founded on sound science, to allow hunter’s to donate venison to the needy,” said NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane.

The North Dakota Community Action Partnership administers the Sportsmen Against Hunger Program in North Dakota. Last year, following a scientifically unfounded claim by a local dermatologist, William Cornatzer, that consuming venison harvested with traditional ammunition posed a human health risk, the North Dakota Community Action Partnership was required by the state’s Department of Health to destroy donated venison and instituted its own policy not to accept donated venison if the hunter harvested the deer using traditional ammunition. They continued to accept venison taken by bow.

The state’s policy was strongly criticized by NSSF as an over reaction that literally took natural, low fat, high protein food out of the mouths of the less fortunate because there was no scientific evidence of a human health risk. Subsequent, unbiased research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the absence of a human health risk and demonstrated that North Dakota hunters that consumed game harvested with traditional ammunition did not suffer any adverse human health risks. North Dakota officials failed to conduct their own study, but merely accepted the samples from the dermatologist.

“This unfortunate scare was caused by Dr. Cornatzer who sits on the board member of an organization, the Peregrine Fund, which advocates for a total ban on the use of traditional ammunition for hunting. Dr. Cornatzer’s junk science was thoroughly debunked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” said Keane.

The CDC study found that:

• The average lead level of the hunters tested was actually lower than the blood lead level of the average American, including non-hunters. In other words, if you were to randomly pick someone on the street, chances are they would have a higher blood lead level than the hunters in this study. No adult in the study had a blood lead level that came even close to rising to the level where the CDC would begin to be concerned.

• The lead levels of children under 6 in the study had a blood lead level of less than half the national average. Children over 6 had even lower lead levels. The CDC’s level of concern for lead in children is 10 — more than 10 times the amount (a mean of just 0.88) found in the study population.

• While there was only a very small difference between participants who ate wild game harvested with traditional ammunition and non-hunters — only .3 micrograms — the hunters in the study were well below the CDC level of concern for adults, which is 25. They were even below the level of concern for children. Furthermore, there was no correlation between blood lead levels and those adults that consumed game for the longest period of time which you would expect to see if consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition caused elevated lead levels.

“We hope that any lingering concerns hunters and their families may still have about consuming game taken with traditional ammunition will now be put to rest based on sound science and the common sense that comes from centuries of hunters using traditional ammunition,” concluded Keane.

Hunters are reminded to properly field dress and butcher game.

Hunters Helping Hunters, Inc. currently has an opening on the Board of Directors
for the Vice President of Fundraising. The candidate must be able to dedicate at
least 20 hours per month towards fundraising activities and commit to a 3-year
term. Hunters Helping Hunters, Inc is a not-for-profit, 501c3 organization and
all Board of Directors are made up of people who volunteer their time and energy
to fund this charity.  Board members of HHH do not receive salaries or any other
compensation for their work. If interested, please send request for copy of the
Job Description and questionnaire to kzeringue@tx.rr.com.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Fairfax, Va. — The National Park Service has announced its intention to ban traditional ammunition containing lead in all its parks. The move would needlessly push hunters to use more costly ammo like tungsten, copper, and steel. The restrictions, set to take affect by the end of 2010, were announced without regard to science or soliciting feedback from sportsmens’ groups.

“The NPS announcement demonstrates either complete ignorance or complete arrogance as to the effect that this policy will have on hunters,” says Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “There is no science to support NPS’ contention that the use of lead ammunition in hunting is causing environmental contamination, having a negative effect on wildlife, or posing a threat to the health of visitors or park staff. This policy, and the lack of communication in advance with the sportsmen’s community, is a deliberate attempt to reduce the number of people who will want to hunt in the 60 parks that are open to hunting. This plays directly into the hands of radical anti-hunting organizations like the Humane Society of the US which is advocating that hunters be banned from using lead ammunition.”

The NRA will continue to be a voice of opposition against this unnecessary action and is committed to protecting the rights of hunters to use the ammo that is best suited for their hunting needs and budget.

-NRA-

 Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.

Copyright 2009, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

One of the most selfless acts hunters can do for their community is donate venison from the deer that they harvest to feed the needy. After a questionable study regarding the health factors involved in venison from deer killed by traditional ammunition, the federal Centers for Disease Control ran its own study, which gave venison a clean bill of health — and the National Shooting Sports Foundation has addressed those results on its new blog. An article in the Poughkeepsie Journal highlights the welcomed efforts of one unified group of sportsmen, typical of hunting groups across the nation, that are making a difference in their community because of its venison-donation program. Despite the exhaustive federal study, Minnesota has adopted an expensive procedure of X-raying donated venison, at a cost of 30 cents a pound, before it is distributed!

Well at my local web based hangout, Woody’s.  The topic of lead in the deer meat has come up again.  Ive tried to tell them that everything they need to know about lead in deer meat is right here at Help4hunters.com

Then somebody posted a video that got a few of them scared to death and switching to Barnes all cooper X bullets.   So since I like videos, I thought I would post the link here and add to the Lead in the meat collection I got going.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/fish_wildlife/lead/index.htm

Later,

Wildlife Management Institute.org

The North Dakota Department of Health (NDDH) and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) have recently released independent studies that provide recommendations for minimizing lead exposure to hunters and other individuals who consume game meat harvested with lead-based bullets, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.  Both studies began following the discovery of lead fragments in venison donated to North Dakota and Minnesota venison donation programs in March 2008.

In early October, the MN DNR completed an assessment of lead fragment levels in deer and sheep carcasses that had been shot using various combinations of commonly used firearms and ammunition.  Using radiography, researchers detected lead in tissue samples,” as much as 18 inches away from the exit wound, and noted that most of the particles were too small to see or feel.  However, “the probability of having a tissue sample test positive for lead at 10 inches was quite low (~7%).”  The study also found that rinsing the wound channel reduced lead fragments locally but seemed to increase lead contamination in other areas of the carcass.  Surprisingly, trimming 2 inches of material around the wound channel eliminated only 30 percent of lead contamination.

In an effort to shed light on the potential health risks caused by the presence of lead in game meat, the NDDH and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began a study on May 16, 2008 to “determine whether an increase in blood lead levels (PbB) is associated with the consumption of wild game.”

Released November 5, the study found that, of the 736 participants who volunteered to have their PbB tested, those who consumed game meat harvested with lead bullets had somewhat higher levels of lead in their blood than did those who consumed little or no game meat.  Additionally, higher PbB were associated with more recent consumption of game meat.

No individuals participating in the study showed PbB above 10 micrograms per deciliter, the CDC recommended threshold for individual case management, and those who consumed game meat had only 0.3 micrograms per deciliter higher PbB than did those who had not consumed game meat.  Due to a limitation in study participants, a trend toward higher PbB in children could not be confidently determined.

“Ingesting lead particles in game meat is not the most important source of lead exposure to humans,” said Dr. Stephen Pickard, M.D., epidemiologist for NDDH.  “Sources like lead-based paint are far and above more critical, but lead particles in game meat are a real source.”

Both the North Dakota and Minnesota studies contain recommendations for hunters and others who consume game meat harvested with lead-based bullets.  Among the recommendations is an advisory that children under the age of six and pregnant women should not consume game meat harvested with lead bullets.  The studies encourage liberal trimming of wound channels in game harvested with lead-based ammunition.  Also noted was that ground venison is the most likely of meats to contain lead.  Other sources recommend that the grinding surfaces of meat processing equipment be cleaned routinely, perhaps even between individual cuts of meat.  
To read the full list of recommendations from the each of the studies, visit the following websites: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/lead/index.html (for the MN DNR bullet fragmentation study) and http://www.ndhealth.gov/lead/venison/ (for the NDDH study).  (mcd)

New regulations concerning venison donations by meat processors have led many area processors to stop their donation programs.

Deer hunters would donate venison to a processor, which then gives meat away to area food banks. The state reimburses processors for the time it takes to prepare the meat.

BRIAN BASHAM/TRIBUNE Jeremy Rodewald transports a deer carcass from cold storage to the cutting block at Hoffman’s Town & Country Meat Market in Detroit Lakes.

“The regulations made it hard for us to put out a good product,” said Henry Hoffman, owner of Hoffman’s Town & Country in Detroit Lakes.” 

The new rules have come about because of concerns over lead contamination in venison.

Alice Hammer, an administrative assistant at the Becker County Food Pantry, said that over 2,000 pounds of venison was donated to the pantry last winter.

The donated venison used to come to food banks in a variety of forms such as whole cuts, stew meat and ground venison.

However, the concerns over lead contamination have led the state Department of Agriculture to prohibit donating ground venison.

Hoffman said he questions the value of providing the stew meat.

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