State Reluctantly Agrees to Prohibit Lead Shot

California’s estimated 100,000 waterfowl hunters will have to get the lead out of this year’s hunting seasons if they intend to hunt on any of the state’s federal waterfowl refuges.

The state Fish and Game Commission, which had opposed federal orders to ban lead shot on federal refuges in the state, agreed Friday to uphold the ban but did so under protest.

The five-member commission, in a telephone vote, voted to “accede to federal requirements but reserved the right to take further legal action,” a commission spokeswoman said.

The Interior Department had set Friday as a deadline for an answer to its demand that only steel shot be used. A state refusal would have resulted in a hunting closure at federal refuges.

Many biologists believe spent lead shot in wetlands is a source of lead poisoning in waterfowl and other birds, among them bald eagles. Some hunting groups counter by maintaining that lead, being more dense, is more accurate, cripples fewer birds, causes less damage to shotgun barrels, and isn’t a significant factor in lead poisoning.

At least one study by the California Department of Fish and Game, involving 20,000 pintail ducks, indicated that lead ingestion resulted in very little, if any, change in mortality. Some DFG biologists have said that California weather patterns may explain why waterfowl in California contract lead poisoning at a lower rate than in other states.

“On the biology side, our people tell us that the evidence that lead in California causes a significant incidence of waterfowl lead poisoning is very thin,” a DFG spokesman said.

The changeover to steel-only shooting will affect hunting at numerous federal hunting areas in the state this fall: All of Lassen and Modoc counties--including the huge, adjoining Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges on the California-Oregon line near Tulelake, Calif.--eastern parts of Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama and Plumas counties; the Sacramento, Delevan, Colusa and Sutter national refuges; the Grizzly Island wildlife area in Solano County, and the Cibola refuge in Imperial County, south of Blythe.

The commission said that it would take up the question of possible legal action against the Interior Department at its meeting in San Francisco Aug. 29.