Trump: Don't Even Think About Reversing Obama's Ban on Lead Bullets
- by: Susan V
- recipient: President Trump
For years, environmental groups have pushed for authorities to ban lead hunting ammunition and fishing sinkers. And just before President Obama left office, he granted their wish - banning their use on federal lands.
On the eve of President Trump's inauguration, the US Fish and Wildlife Service enacted a policy to phase out the use of lead bullets and fishing sinkers by January 2022 on federal lands, including National Wildlife Refuges and waterways.
Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle says the ban is meant to stop "the needless, incidental poisoning of millions of wild animals each year" - not to mention the "tens of thousand of tons of lead" hunters pump into the environment. He adds that none of this destruction is necessary because there are "field-tested and cost-competitive alternatives" readily available, and they even out-perform lead.
However, reports NPR, there is fierce opposition from people like National Shooting Sports Foundation's Lawrence Keane and hunters who claim it's too expensive to change their ammo. And some fear Trump will side with them and reverse the ban.
One only has to read NPR's story of one horribly suffering, lead-poisoned bald eagle to realize just how cruel and irrational opposition to this ban is.
Sign this petition to tell Trump: "Don't even THINK about reversing Obama's ban on lead ammo and fishing sinkers."
Dear President Trump:
Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle says there is “absolutely no compelling reason not to require hunters and fishers to switch” to alternative metals that outperform lead. Also, considering that Arizona has provided hunters free copper bullets, they can’t be that much more expensive than lead.
Furthermore, there are more compelling reasons than just cost and effectiveness. Without the ban, wildlife and the environment are being needlessly poisoned. - and cruelly so.
According to a report by NPR, last month a Pennsylvania Game Commission officer brought a sick bald eagle to Carbon County Environmental Education Center in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Chief Naturalist Susan Gallagher said the bird was exhibiting the classic symptoms - vomiting, with lime-green diarrhea, along with other symptoms of lead poisoning. The poisoning occurs, she adds, when lead fragments get into the birds’ gizzards, and the most common source is lead ammunition they get from eating the remains of hunted animals.
Although eagle populations are not currently endangered, Condors and others are. But Gallagher believes if concerns about bird populations won’t change hunters’ minds, spending some time with a lead-poisoned bird will. She told NPR: "Had you seen this bird suffer and go through what it went through and then walked into a sporting goods store, absolutely, you'd make that choice. Absolutely."
We, the undersigned, are asking the Trump administration to make the right choice and keep Obama’s ban on lead ammunition and fishing sinkers in place.
Thanks for your time.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/16/us-bald-eagles-lead-poisoning-ammunition
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