Hey Guys who like to eat Lead.... since you are posting my Name... guess Ill speak up. Nope Im not from California,born and raised in Nodak, but I have deer hunted Blacktails there. Yes those pictures are real... but the lead in the ground venison was dust not fragments you can feel with your tongue. I spent a hour under fluoroscopy ( thats Xray for those that don't know) digging out all of those areas that lit up. You could not feel it with your fingers, nor would you with your tongue. If you are interested in the real story of this read on, if not stop! I am a big hunter ask any of my friends, have shot killed and eaten 100's of deer, antelope,elk, and moose over the years Rifle, bow, Muzzy. I also am a big bird hunter and yes shoot shotguns on top of my favorite way which is Falconry. I was asked to be on the Board of The Peregrine Fund 10 years ago to over see the Archives of American Falconry which is a museum funded by Falconers and housed in the Peregrine Fund. When I first went to a board meeting to see if I wanted to join, one of their scientists was presenting a paper on lead poisoning in California Condors that the Peregrine Fund was releasing in Arizona. They showed a mule deer shot with the same bullets I had used for 20 years a .270 with Nosler Partition bullets ,a plain x ray of the chest was done. In this X-ray you could see lead fragments (which are dust) as far back as mid backstraps. I'm thinking wow Ive been eating a lot of that stuff the last 40 years... My son who was in Medical School at UND was planning a required research project and when I talked to him about the X-ray, said we should check on our own deer meat. My Idea of checking the donated meat for Hunters for Hungry was it was meat we had not touched, just general deer shot in Nodak...Plus I had been a member of Safari Club for years, thought we should know what we were giving away. So we picked up 100 one lb packages processed by 6 different butchers and threw them mixed together in a CT scanner (X-ray machine) to see what it showed. My personal thougt was there might be a couple fragments on some in the X-ray. I about fell off my chair when the image came out. 60% of the packages had lead dust showing up in the X-ray.
There was never a covert plan to make lead bullet illegal, I still have quite a few Nosler's ballistic as well as soft tip lead. But do I use them for shooting big game in the chest..hell no. Do I use them for target practice ,yes. As Ive told patients, friends and others if you feel you must shoot lead, shoot the deer in the head or neck, cut off the base of neck (no neck roast) or switch to a safer and better bullet like Barnes like I have. I had never shot Barnes before seeing the X-rays. Have I ever said lead bullets should be outlawed,No. It was the Minnesota big game biologist that initially was quoted that I was full of s&^t that then xr-ayed his own home butchered venison and found 40% of his packages had lead fragments in them that did the study shooting all kinds of bullets into sheep carcass and showed that in a high velosity rifle with a standard lead tipped bullet that the lead fragments will be found up to 1.5 ft from the entrance and exit wound (thats 3' in diameter).
Ok some more education for you on the side effect of lead.... yep if you are a adult it takes a lot of lead to make you sick, your brain is formed its not a neurotoxin unless in very high levels. Not the same in kids, pregnant women or women going to have kids. Low levels of lead doesn't kill them either.... just makes em a little dumber..... like about 15 IQ points. Not a big deal if you have a good IQ in the first place. Yep I grew up eating this stuff, I'm not dumb... fed it to my kids.... wished I hadn't. As a M.D. my recommendation is to switch to non fragmenting bullet like barnes if you are going to feed your venison to your kids or wife if planning kids. Period....
Unlike most in Nodak my dad was not a hunter, I had to learn to hunt and fish by myself, did a lot of reading still do, still learn things yep from this site Thanks Volmer! As a kid and young man reading the old outdoor writers of Sports Afield & Field and Stream.. I was taught as a good hunter you should be good conservationist.. protect and save the game we enjoy hunting as well as all other wildlife in nature. My life has alway been centered on this even though I very conservative politically. As a Physician it is my job to help protect the health of people of North Dakota and this is the true reason why this information was researched...
You can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink though.... BTW if you want to eat more lead, move to Flint Michigan!! There were some guys that though it was ok there also...
