National Wildlife Refuges

Interesting.
And I'd have to give it thought..more thought.
But my initial query is, is it fair to say our Wildlife Refuges are better off, or mirror "nature" better as "inviolate sanctuary"?

While my instinct say's leave refuges, as refuges. Give animals and nature spaces that separate them as much as possible from the actions of humanity, such as hunting...rifle shot and carcass.

Another part of me, say's "Hunting" in one form or another has nearly always existed whenever you had "Nature" and Man. That the definition of untouchable "refuge" is really the artificial construct. That hunting...is actually the long existing truer reflection of the relationship between nature, man and these animals.

As long as population numbers are respected, species survival primary...perhaps I need to step away from my first instinct?

Or has mankind become so fundamentally toxic, that the idea of allowing hunting in any form is inviting hemlock into the drink?

 

Our local National Wildlife Refuge is about 7000 acres and deer hunting is allowed simply to reduce the herd. The 7000 acres cannot sustain all of the deer that live there.

 

I love the first line of the article:
"Conservationists argue that the move will expose more animals to lead poisoning and other environmental threats."

You just can't get any better than that.
Lead poisoning used to be a non-trivial thing back when commercial hunters used punt guns to put gooses and ducks on tables in some restaurants, but that was quite a long time ago.
Like....turn of the century long time ago, and I think that organizations like Ducks Unlimited prove that hunters and nature can co-exist not only peacefully, but in a real symbiotic relationship.
Modern hunters that harvest large game almost always do so with one shot, and I dare say that it would take quite a bit of hunters driving home with empty pickup truck beds following an unsuccessful hunt to affect local lead levels, and the reason why hunters pay thousands of dollars to hunt in managed lands is to bag a trophy and some meat.
The lead scare tactics are more about reloading ammunition than they are about federal lands.

You need two things in order for the successful management of wildlife refuges: Money and Land.
The first is easy. Dot.gov already owns a butt-ton of land.
Federal lands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The second isn't easy at all, which is very obvious if you've ever been to Africa.
OK....so as far as I'm concerned spending five figures so that you can be cold and miserable for two weeks while trying to stalk a VERY large critter so that you can put gamey tasting meat in a freezer just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Collecting the thousands of dollars in fees and putting it into the pockets of some wildlife biologist DOES.

It's better for the hunters.
It's MUCH better for the wildlife.
It's also better for the city slickers who clog the national wildlife reserves during the summer months because even though they account for most of the environmental damage to these preserves, they also get to see more critters and pay lower fees.

Caveats:
I no longer hunt, although I do have access to a nearly unlimited supply of deer, and venison actually tastes rather good.
It's just easier to go to the store and buy meat.
It's also a LOT cheaper too if you've ever figured out the real cost of venison, which is nothing compared with elk, tuna, etc...
I maintain proficiency in shooting for obvious reasons and I also have the ability to hunt and fish just as a heritage thing.


YMMV

 

Don't they have iron shot for the Pb(lead) sensitive areas?
Just ducks right? if they eat the shot off the bottom of the lake.
Bullets OK I would think.

I would think the environmentalists would welcome the hunters (assuming properly managed) as that bolsters the argument to use the land for things other than oil and gas and so on.

 

The only problem is 'public' hunting areas are also magnets for those who shouldn't be hunting half drunk.

I only prefer to hunt 'on base' or family and relatives land. My family treats weapons as a tool and field safety is taught from day one. You can always scare up another covey ... blood kin are a little harder to replace.

Bob Wilson

 

The federal lead shot ban has long applied to all migratory waterfowl. Most states don't apply it to upland birds, where the shot falls onto dry land and is far less likely to be eaten.

If the principal problem with hunting there is lead, then I'd next ask about how well the lead shots bans have worked elsewhere, and whether an expansion to ban lead bullets there is practical.

 

When you ban something like "lead bullets" does this mean bullets that have lead cores, lead shot, or lead tipped bullets?
Would a ban like this also be expanded to include fishing tackle?
What about people who cast their own bullets?

A ban on the private ownership of lead might open a can of worms.....a tin can, of course and not a lead lined one.
It's not a big deal for me personally.
I have the ability to cast bullets, since I have a proper muzzle-loader and lots of powder....but I generally don't like to tin my barrels (shooting lead bullets can lead foul, or 'tin' the bore) so I use jacketed rounds----or lead core bullets surrounded by a copper jacket.

As far as limiting or banning lead bullets from use while hunting?
I don't really have a problem with that, since one of the very few parts of the government that approach operational efficiency is probably the various game management departments.

A lot of......ah......'bang for the buck" there.

 

I thought this thread was about potential hunting on National Wildlife Refuges, not everywhere else that it exists now.

 

For range time, I went with lubbed patched balls and real black powder and never looked back. The plastic jacketed bullets pushed by those d*mn synthetic powders were crap ... three shots and I had to clean the Thompson. Just terrible. But I'll shoot black powder, patched balls as long as I want without a problem.

Each load cleans the left-overs from the previous shot. Then I use conicals when reaching out 200 yards or more. Excellent accuracy and my shoulder says high muzzle velocity.

Several years ago, I was snapping in my new sights, beryllium, front sight, crosshairs, and rear peep. So I was getting elevation and windage right with patched, balls, when some kids came over to the other end of the range. They tossed out some empty cans and bottles and proceeded to shoot pistols, a derringer, and an AK-style POS. You know the type, all noise and bluster and no knowledge of accurate shooting. But they were amused as I fired and reloaded my muzzle loader. Out of curiosity, they came over to see this strange old man and his funny rifle.

So I offered and let each take a target load shot. But the last kid asked,'So what can you do with this gun?'

"Hunting" and I explained I'm shooting target loads. Would he like to shoot a hunting load?

He said 'sure'.

So instead of 180 grain ball, a 240 grain conical. Instead of 80 grains of powder, half a hunting load, 140 grains.

Both he and his friends were impressed. The friends happy to have shot a target load.

Bob Wilson

 

It's amazing how friendly people at a gun range can be.....
(of course.....everybody is armed.)

 

Marine gate guards come in two flavors, with and without ammunition. As a general rule, those with ammunition are kind, polite, and perfect gentlemen. The ones without ammunition are assholes.

Bob Wilson

 

These days, they all have ammo.

Back in the day, one of my favourite jokes went something like:
Why does the Army use guard dogs and the Navy use Marines?
...Simple, the Army got to pick first!

Actually, I've always really likes having the Big Green Machine guard my crap.
Marines are very binary in their thinking and when somebody tells them to guard weapons and ships, they do not suffer fools!
Back before 9/11 you could always tell the ships and bases that had the 'good stuff' by whether they were guarded by Marines or Civies.
Now?
They're all guarded by armed troops/
I personally witnessed one O5 on a submarine tender and two O5s in GTMO get themselves "detained" by Marines.
The Commander on the tender foolishly tried to bluster his way out of it only to wind up hog-tied with a Condition-1 rifle not quite touching the back of his head being held by the E3 that put him there.
The Ossifer got his butt crawled and the Private got a pat on the head.

Sometimes?
Dot.mil gets it right.

 

I don't know but regret I won't live for 500 years to find out.

Bob Wilson

 

Mr Google found:

Bismuth
Less dense, but as soft as, lead, making it widely usable, including older or Damascus-barrelled
guns. Available for most bores in many sizes and in fibre or plastic wads. Advisable to increase
pellet size by at least one (e.g. UK no.4 (3.1mm) instead of UK no. 5 (2.8mm)), to maintain
penetration energy levels.

Steel
Substantially less dense than lead so pellets at least two sizes larger than lead are normally
needed to achieve similar penetration energy levels. For example, at least UK no. 3 (3.3mm)
instead of UK no. 5 (2.8mm). Its greater hardness, though, can mean both tighter patterns and
deeper penetration than with comparable lead. It normally comes in protective plastic wads
necessary to protect barrel walls from contact with hard pellets. Steel’s use in standard guns or in
high performance loads is guided by the CIP (see below).

Tungsten
Tungsten-based shot appears in various brands, comprising different mixes of tungsten and other
metals or plastics. Impact Tungsten Matrix (ITM) comprises tungsten and nylon, while TMX
contains tungsten and iron, suited to muzzle-loading guns. Hevi-Shot also contains some nickel
and iron. American loads are more variable. Most tungsten types are similar in density to lead, but
some are denser (mainly US brands)​

I have not looked for these in .50 cal bullets. A patched ball would not be a problem and I've achieved some amusing results with bird-shot fired from my rifled Thompson. I was not expecting a Krispy Kreme pattern.

Bob Wilson

 

I only use scatter-guns for self-defense against bi-peds, so the whole lead-versus-bismuth thing for me is a moot argument.
At self defense ranges you can use rock salt, rice, rubber balls, etc.
I have a muzzle-loader, so technically I can use shot in that weapon as well but that's a prepper thing.

The article in the original post regarded large game hunting, so the lead thing is also a moot point, since a vary large and very timid four-legged vegan isn't going to let you get within effective shot gunning range, and no sane person would use one anyway.
So...you're talking about 1 bullet that's rather large and mostly copper jacketed....something that's not very likely to be accidentally ingested by a carrion eater since (a) most of these rounds blow through the targeted animal and wind up burrowing itself in the ground and (b) these bullets are much larger than shot for the most part, and jagged.
Not "good eats" for a scavenger.

In America, people who hunt with shotguns usually go after waterfowl are a fairly self-policing bunch, since nobody likes pissed off game wardens.If you use the wrong kind of weapon, or shell, or you 'accidentally' shoot the wrong kind of duck, or the right kind of duck at the wrong time, or don't have all of your paperwork in order you face very stiff fines, and the confiscation of weapons, game, etc...

There are people that use small bore shotguns to harvest squirrels and wabbits, and rednecks for some reason have this thing for hunting deer with dogs (a practice that I loathe!) and it would almost be worth it for dot.gov to "outlaw lead" to make them use unleaded shot, but these hunters eschew federal land so the article in the OP does not apply to them either....