Proposed lead shot ban in Montana

onpoint

onpoint

Active member
FYI-
The Montana state fish and game agency has proposed a total lead shot ban for shooting ANY game bird on ANY WMA in MT. The proposed regulations on the MT FWP web site can be found via this link: http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/oppForPubCommentUGB.html

Comments are welcome from residents and non-residents. The public comment period closes on 22 Jan. 2010 at 5 PM. For further clarification, you may call the Wildlife Bureau office at 406-444-2612. To submit comments electronically, this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N2CCH9R can be found under â??Opportunity for Public Commentâ?� on the Hunting home page at the http://fwp.mt.gov/ website. Written comments can be sent to: FWP â?? Wildlife Bureau, Attn: Public Comment, POB 200701, Helena MT 59620-0701.

Speak up now or let those old guns go silent, this is just the beginning...
 
Is the fight worth it?

Onpoint,

Even if I conceded all of your arguments on this issue, perhaps we could agree that in 10 years, lead shot will be banned, no matter what hunters do or even no matter what the ammunition companies and their lobbyists do (using hunters for their economic benefit).

If my premise is correct, then are hunters better off using political and economic capital on a losing issue or are we better off working on farm policy; state land policy (e.g. ND is opposed to more WMAs) improving public land access; supporting conservation organizations etc. In short, let's focus on positive issues that help us as hunters and weaken anti hunting sentiment.

If we do want to address a contentious issue, then why not focus on the issue of outfitters; require disclosure of released brids; figure out how to fairly regulate pay hunting and study all the unintended long term consequences of those realities. All of the above issues seem much more important than lead shot.
 
Why doesn't the state and feds worry more about real toxins in our rivers, lakes and lands. Like feed lot run off, farm fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, septic run off, industrial waste, acid rain, mine spills, Etc. Instead they are worrying about lead shot. Lead shot doesn't even make a blip on the radar screen but a easy target as people like yourself just choose to roll over on your backs and except the small guy taking the hit well the big players go on unchecked.

onpoint
 
onpoint said:
FYI-
The Montana state fish and game agency has proposed a total lead shot ban for shooting ANY game bird on ANY WMA in MT. The proposed regulations on the MT FWP web site can be found via this link: http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/oppForPubCommentUGB.html

Comments are welcome from residents and non-residents. The public comment period closes on 22 Jan. 2010 at 5 PM. For further clarification, you may call the Wildlife Bureau office at 406-444-2612. To submit comments electronically, this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N2CCH9R can be found under â??Opportunity for Public Commentâ?� on the Hunting home page at the http://fwp.mt.gov/ website. Written comments can be sent to: FWP â?? Wildlife Bureau, Attn: Public Comment, POB 200701, Helena MT 59620-0701.

Speak up now or let those old guns go silent, this is just the beginning...
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I'm surprised that this wasn't done years ago. It's probably the right thing to do.
 
Landman

Maybe check in your own back yard, like the Lake Andes Restoration project. The feed lot run off and fertilizers have completely ruined the lake. Wade around in it, I have, it smells like manure and chemicals. Truly sad but South Dakota chose to ban lead shot well the Hoots and the farmer on the refuge end of the lake have cow crap from over a 1000 head of cattle running directly in the lake. 10 mile long lake trashed from pollution but hey it was easier to stop all hunters from shooting lead shot, instead of stopping two commercial cattle operations. Just which do you think has done more damage? The lake has 4-6ft of silt from farm and feed lot run off.

It's not rocket science

http://www.sdlakesandstreams.com/files/Download/Project_Brochure_Draft_9-4-08 Charles Mix.pdf

Now Montana can choose to use the same poor use of time and money. I fished a river up near Cook City years ago in Beartooth Pass. I took my mother and father there to show them the fantastic Cut Throat Trout fishing. When we got there a platinum mine had spilled tailings into the stream and killed every fish in the stream but hey..it's easier to use their time and money banning lead shot from hunters instead of stopping the big polluters of our rivers, streams, lakes and public lands. Kick the small guy in the pills and let the big guys go unchecked. Hey Montana, quite wasting our time and money. Lead shot shot this year is buried under all the dead grass and leaves each year, going deeper and deeper into the earth in which it came from.

Have you ever seen a archeologist find things on top the ground? NO!

Things that were on top the ground 100s of years ago, are now several feet under ground now. Same goes with the lead shot shot from your gun.

onpoint
 
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onpoint said:
Landman

Maybe check in your own back yard, like the Lake Andes Restoration project. The feed lot run off and fertilizers have completely ruined the lake. Wade around in it, I have, it smells like manure and chemicals. Truly sad but South Dakota chose to ban lead shot well the Hoots and the farmer on the refuge end of the lake have cow crap from over a 1000 head of cattle running directly in the lake. 10 mile long lake trashed from pollution but hey it was easier to stop all hunters from shooting lead shot, instead of stopping two commercial cattle operations. Just which do you think has done more damage? The lake has 4-6ft of silt from farm and feed lot run off.

It's not rocket science

http://www.sdlakesandstreams.com/files/Download/Project_Brochure_Draft_9-4-08 Charles Mix.pdf
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Of course, the cattle lots should be cleaned up and we need more regulations to make farmers stop polluting the streams and lakes. However I know from personal experience that there are some ignorant folks in your area who believe they have the right to pollute streams and lakes. I have over four miles of streams on my property and all of it is buffered with shrubs and grasses according to NRCS guidelines. And you know what, I had to take the local officials to court to do it because they were certain that shrubs and grasses pollute steams and cause erosion. Then in Court they argued that my buffer was essentually a wildlife production area and therefore could be rejected by the county. I could have put a cattle lot directly on the stream with less local resistance. That is ignorance at its worst. It is sometimes said that farmers are good conservationists, but in many cases they are not.

But really, the issue with the lead shot is sort of unrelated. However it would help the environment if both lead shot and cattle feed lots on steams and lakes were banned.

I hunted Lake Andes many times in the 1960's and it offered some of the best duck hunting in the state. It was 1972 when the Federal Wildlife Officials closed the artesian wells due to a severe outbreak of the duck plague. After that, the ducks simply went to Arkansas after freezeup. Before 1972 the ducks would feed in corn fields all around Lake Andes and what fun it was to do a belly crawl in a corn field after thousands of feeding mallards. How I miss those days.
 
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landman said:
Of course, the cattle lots should be cleaned up and we need more regulations to make farmers stop polluting the streams and lakes. However I know from personal experience that there are some ignorant folks in your area who believe they have the right to pollute streams and lakes. I have over four miles of streams on my property and all of it is buffered with shrubs and grasses according to NRCS guidelines. And you know what, I had to take the local officials to court to do it because they were certain that shrubs and grasses pollute steams and cause erosion. Then in Court they argued that my buffer was essentually a wildlife production area and therefore could be rejected by the county. I could have put a cattle lot directly on the stream with less local resistance. That is ignorance at its worst. It is sometimes said that farmers are good conservationists, but in many cases they are not.

But really, the issue with the lead shot is sort of unrelated. However it would help the environment if both lead shot and cattle feed lots on steams and lakes were banned.

I hunted Lake Andes many times in the 1960's and it offered some of the best duck hunting in the state. It was 1972 when the Federal Wildlife Officials closed the artesian wells due to a severe outbreak of the duck plague. After that, the ducks simply went to Arkansas after freezeup. Before 1972 the ducks would feed in corn fields all around Lake Andes and what fun it was to do a belly crawl in a corn field after thousands of feeding mallards. How I miss those days.
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I commend you for your stewardship of your land and the buffer zones you have taken the time to create. Folks like you should be given priority treatment from our counties and state when it comes to programs that pay you back for such efforts.

I still think we can find far better use of our time and money, going after the real problems. Lead shot should rate some where down the list, in the list of problems. Whens the last time you seen lead shot wreck a whole water shed or kill off a entire stream?
 
onpoint said:
I commend you for your stewardship of your land and the buffer zones you have taken the time to create. Folks like you should be given priority treatment from our counties and state when it comes to programs that pay you back for such efforts.

I still think we can find far better use of our time and money, going after the real problems. Lead shot should rate some where down the list, in the list of problems. Whens the last time you seen lead shot wreck a whole water shed or kill off a entire stream?
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Well, I agree that there should be more effort to keep cattle and feed lots away from streams and lakes. I agree that pollution and erosion from cattle is a much more important issue than lead shot and cattle on or near streams should be banned by the Federal or State Government. In Charles Mix County there is a strong lobby by the local cattlemen's group against outlawing cattle on or near streams so I doubt if much will get done to improve Lake Andes in the short term. It's certainly a sad situation there and its even worse in the county to the north.
 
I have to agree with Onpoint on this one. On the list of threats to conservation, habitat, and our wildlife in general the use of lead shot is so completely miniscule as compared to many other far more severe problems.

The reason why these regulations go after hunters instead of corporate farmers is that hunters have no organizational voice. The Foreversx2 are great for habitat concerns, the NRA is great for gun rights, but there is no organization or PACT that is setup to handle the other issues that can potentially hurt our rights to pursue game in a traditional and lawful manner.

Every single issue that continues to be forced upon us year after year will also continue to deplete our numbers and our potential ability to protect what we value as our very natural and God given right.
 
I think it might be .0000001% of the public hunting land in Montana.
The rest of the public land will allow lead shot until the national ban.
 
mnmthunting said:
I think it might be .0000001% of the public hunting land in Montana.
The rest of the public land will allow lead shot until the national ban.
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One piece at a time son, one piece at a time.
 
Onpoint, that is kinda what I've been saying. Lead will be banned nation wide within a few years. If you don't think MTFW&P hasn't made up their mind check the history. All the calling in won't change things.
They, MTFW&P like all state F&G KNOW better.
 
It's hard to convince people about threats that they can't actually "see" when they are afield. However, those threats do exist, more often than we know. I'm sure that the pollution problem mentioned above on the lake in Landman's area wasn't as evident initially as it is now, and the same can be said of lead. If you follow what happened to the waterfowl populations and the parallel impacts on eagles when lead shot was legal for waterfowl, you know that it's going on. The fact that all of that shot will be covered up in 10,000 years has no significance on today's wildlife populations. Dove populations have been diving for the past several decades with no visible proportionate changes in habitat,etc. What recent research has found is that dove readily pick up lead on the heavily shot dove fields and that they are significantly more susceptible to lead poisoning than were ducks and geese. It is currently projected that as many doves die from lead poisoning each year as die from hunting mortality. If that number doesn't make you sit up an notice, you don't really understand. Lead is a significant poison, especially to fowl. The fact that they have a gizzard and grind their ingested lead greatly increases their absorbtion of that lead. It's a problem we have created and I feel like Landman that we are better off making the move to address it rather than accepting a bill that is potentially proposed by anti-hunting interests who wouldn't hesitate to include restrictions/punishments on the hunting fraternity within said bill. If we control the issue, we benefit in the end.

mnmthunting said:
Onpoint, that is kinda what I've been saying. Lead will be banned nation wide within a few years. If you don't think MTFW&P hasn't made up their mind check the history. All the calling in won't change things.
They, MTFW&P like all state F&G KNOW better.
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With the banning of lead shot comes the high cost of the alliterative non toxic shots. Along with that comes your inability to stock pile ammunition because of the cost factor. You are in fact promoting a forum of gun control. How much of a threat are we, when we have a 100 rounds or less of shotgun shells? You are pounding the nail in your own coffin of hunting. How many 1000 fixed choked shotguns will become useless because of cost of ammo? I bet 70% or more fixed choke guns are full choke. None can or should shoot steel shot.

Steel has been proven to be a wounder, That will be the next target. What then? just let that go too?

They talked about a tax on ammunition that would make it cost a $100.00 a box coming some day. They won't need a tax, the hunting community will just do it to themselves. WAKE UP!

As the folks in the United Kingdom will tell you. Once you give something up in the gun/hunting world. Your not getting it back. One by one they will convince you how much better off you are and that your doing the right thing.. Heck they have done good job, several of you are ready and willing. No need for a tax on ammo or guns. We will just make ammo that's 3-5 bucks or more a shell with laws and restrictions. They are also working on rifle ammo and again, many are going along just like they want you to. 22's are now illegal to discharge in many areas of California because of a lead ban. All 22 ammo uses lead bullets. No more 22's to start your kid off on. No more cheap plinking

Quote from Hitler
"This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!

The people of Germany went right along with this also. The Government told them what was best for them, until they themselves believed it and handed over their guns. It's already been said by a poster on this thread. well their going to ban lead sooner or later anyways. Just let them do it now. Don't fight it. That says a whole lot on just how easily it will be done.

onpoint
 
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