We have a good amount of edge habitat as we have a good mix of pasture and farm ground. Still alot of fence and tree rows here. more pesticides and herbicides being used every year. But our small game populations seemed to take a noticeable increase in population almost immediately after the raptor population fell.

Seems with especially rabbits and quail we will see good numbers of young throughout summer but through fall their numbers are falling and by late fall winter their population has really fell. When hawks and owls lessoned you could seem the numbers holding up through fall and winter better. Our hawk numbers were crazy high before bird flu

Great news on the habitat. Nothing wrong with them having every opportunity. Lord knows I try to trap as many predators as I can. We are trying to get our quail populations back. We have nothing compared to Kansas though. A buddy of mine told me to tell everyone that it is terrible hunting out there. Just awful. lol


We are lousy with bald eagles. Can’t look up without seeing one.

Our quail numbers are nothing like times in the past but we have huntable numbers.
Our coyote numbers and deer numbers are terrible despite what people say

So maybe he wasn’t being sarcastic. I know it used to be the place to be. Sure hope they rebound. We closed our wild quail season, can only hunt released birds. I don’t think a wild quail has been killed here in 5 years. They are around but only where we can’t hunt them.

Sheep and some related ruminants, amphibians, most species of mollusks and even dogs can be killed by copper. Copper is toxic to most fungus and many plants too. Overall, copper doesn't seem any better than lead.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9495211/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10646-019-02102-5

https://www.petcarerx.com/article/copper-associated-hepatopathy-in-dogs-a-closer-look/6933

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/cuso4gen.html#:~:text=Copper%20in%20copper%20sulfate%20binds%20to%20proteins%20in,normal%20function%20of%20the%20skin%20cells%20and%20enzymes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909216/

Keith

And 130 different species are affected by lead. I’ll look into the toxicity of copper to humans, I do know that lead is.

I’ll check out your links. Will see the pros and cons of both.

Always good to have lots of information to make the best decision.

Just my back woods take on it. Most of my rifle rounds pass through game. When I process it I generally cut an area out around the hole if I hit any meat area.( often take high shoulder shots) yes I see a few frags in the meat it gets cut out. Do I still get small ones maybe but being small the won't have the mass to travel far from the wound channel so should be cut out . If there is any in the meat it will be very small amounts and unlikely to be there anyway. We eat a lot of game large and small shot with lead. Boys shot 10 deer last season and no idea how many squirrel and other small game.

I don't think the amount of lead in what's out there for birds of prey to eat is much at all and if a few do get killed it's a positive because they are overpopulated in my opinion.

Copper Barnes are nice and effective. I shot a few deer and a hog with them. But they are expensive. I did think about switching my deer bullets in 243 to them becus the smaller round does frag out more than larger rounds and I cut out more meat. But it's the difference between $1.09 a loaded round vs $2.36 for copper and I just stocked up on lead after finding a sale.

Every single environment push is pushed to shut down industry, make up poorer and pay more for less. This is the same . The people in power don't like self reliance and this Is just one more attack on it.

I believe you would be better served paying attention to the processed crap you feed your family then the limited amount of lead they may but unlikely eat due to a lead bullet. The same person worried about shooting game with lead will be The same feeding his family processed food cancer causing sweetners.

I guess some just need a cause and sure don't shoot many rounds a year when it cost 2x or more per shot. Just because a guy found one load on sale at one time cheaper than lead to make a blanket statement that it's cheaper than lead like that's how it always is on the shelf automatically makes every thing else the person says not have any credibility. A 30 sec search will show it bs copper is often 2x or more expensive. So the "study" is automatically slanted to get desired results and not valid.


Next will be lead fishing sinkers.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/copper-toxicity#what-is-it

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225400/

There's probably nothing cheap, that doesn't have some level of toxicity, that shoots well.

Copper may be less toxic than lead for people. We need some copper in our systems to live. It is more toxic for many other species.

Keith

I guess if we didn't have lead then we could have a redtail hawk season , seems like with lead there is one on ever power pole.
without lead it could be every power pole and fence post.

Then use lead, like I said. I don’t really care what anyone does. And I saw the images, it travels pretty far. Sounds like you are doing well with removing possible contaminated meat. That’s great.

I don’t know much about processed food as we don’t eat much and limit what we do eat. Mostly wild game and vegetables from our garden. I think processed food is killing us faster than anything else. It is garbage.


I’m not poor so don’t really mind spending a little extra. Not a big deal, but I can see why it would matter to some. Especially if they kill a ton of big game. The group doesn’t want to push any agenda to force anyone to do anything really, they are against lawmakers mandating non-lead.

That is already being pushed, they just want hunters to be educated so when the anti people come they aren’t the ones making the decisions with their money and voices in the pocket of the legislators. They want it to be the hunters choice to make the decision on what they use.

I forgot for a moment how closed minded this group is to discussion. Not everyone and it’s not intended toward you, but this is a group of trappers and hunters. We make up a very small percentage of the population. I believe it is a good idea to learn about different issues the effect us. If a person chooses to put their head in the sand then so be it. It’s coming eventually anyway so might as well read up on it so you can fight it with reason, logic and science.

To each their own I suppose.

Have a good one

That would be cool. I’d like to shoot a Hawk!

Or the owls they are trying to kill out west! Would be awesome to be on one of those hunts. Wonder if you get to keep it?

We just did a version of this thread on another forum.

dont feel like going through it again but basically as we long as we avoid drinking the tap water from Flint state up north, were fine from lead.


https://saddlehunter.com/community/...s-showing-extensive-fragmentation.58083/

Yet we've been giving copper boluses to.our goats for decades.

A needed TRACE mineral for many critters, is included

Goat feed can kill sheep because of the copper. Goats need a fair amount of copper to live. My area of Ohio doesn't have sufficient naturally occurring copper for goats to thrive here. All of the pellets, mixed grain feeds and blocks we give our goats have lots of copper and have to be kept away from sheep.

Keith

Thanks.
I try to avoid sheep.
Heck, Id prefer to.avoid goats, yet here we are, lol

Not many rounds are shot a year at game. Most is in practice. I'm far from poor but with high ammo prices many people are practicing less. Double ammo prices and it will be further reduced. Now you have people shooting and practicing even less that should meane some less accurate and lost game.

I'm not closed minded just have seen over and over how this goes down and the result that will come from it. Alway leads to more regulation. This group says its pro choice but copper is better xys and. CHEAPER inaccurate representation and shows the intentional misrepresentation and obvious attempt to make their copper case look even better.
The anti lead out law it group will show linkes and info from this slanted " sportsman group" and say look even they want this lead ammo out lawed see how bad it is.. the do goodness are not doing the good they want to think they are. In reality it's a non issue just another attack on 2 A and to make ammo more expensive.

So if looking at the big picture with my reality glasses on is closed minded I guess that's me. I like my glassed better than I'm promoting somthing I think is great but will be used to harm peoples ability to afford ammo in the long run and can't look ahead. It's been conning for some time .

I'm not trying to seem mean or hateful I may not come out right in txt but just pointing out the why of what you
may think as closed minded is not closed minded it just not being native and looking down the road and seeing where it leads and has lead in the past.

How many duck hunting groups supported lead shot bans? How much water foul Flys off crippled from light steel shot that takes bigger shot size to kill them and lowered pattern density, range, and terminal effects. Instead of a clean kill at 40 yard with lead #6 it's a cripple flying off to die with steel #4s.

Valid points, I wasn’t saying you were close minded. It was more of a general reference to others here. Based on other topics.

And I’m not sure if I’m for or against it. I can see the benefits of using non-lead. I just thought it was interesting and something to ponder.

That’s all. Not everything has to be a pissing match around here. I’m sure not right about everything and I’m also not wrong about everything. Just like everyone else.

I do like barns copper bullets and do believe and thought about switching to them just for the lead frags reason. I did get a bit worked up when I see a clearly slanted in favor of easily checked and diss proven thing like copper ammo is cheaper. Used to make it look better. If a product can't stand on its own feet without having to lie to make it look better well. Now I'm not saying I don't like copper barns and not had great experience using them. I have . It's just I took issue with how the article is presented and whe we it will likely take us.

Realistically price of copper ammo I irrelevant if you figure how few rounds are shot at game and even practicing a lot of people don't shoot a 20 round box of their deer hunting ammo a year. But the guys that do shoot and the likely hood of lead ammo even being baned at some ranges in the future vs the likely hood of sa small frag of lead killing raptors seems crazy. I think I member reading 80% of retails don't live to be a year old back when I was looking for a falconer to apprentice under. It was basically saying when you catch your young hawk and hunt it it's more likely to survive its first year and when you later release it it will have a full like having made it through the hard first year.

I like copper but shoot mostly lead. It's economics because I do like to shoot and I'm not going to bother sighting in for different loads and only shoot my loads I hunt with. I also like to keep plenty of ammo on hand and cheaper makes that easier. Also availability lead Is more available during shortage.

There's is nothing wrong with copper . You will need to clean your gun with a copper solvent more. But to see they feel the need to be dishonest to make the case for it really takes away from their argument rather than enhance it. I guess it's written for those that don't know better?

I don’t think he was intentionally lying. He even said he was shocked that he found a box of copper ammo cheaper than lead. He was just as surprised as I was I think. He just mentioned that he had found that box for a cheaper price. They said it is an issue when it comes to cost. That and availability of ammo.

Once sighted in, I would think the cost over time would flatten out. Or do what the TSS fans do. Group of guys get together and each buy a box of different ammo and all share and see what works best with patterns.

I am like you, not sure what real effect it truly has and where they may have done studies could have been skewed with higher lead on the landscape or more susceptible animals. Just something to think about and view both sides. I was invited to attend and thought it was interesting. Myself and a couple others were joking that it didn’t really matter to us because broadheads aren’t made of lead.

I don’t think they are trying to mislead or skew, they seemed forthcoming with what they knew and don’t know.