Despite the fact that California condor conservation achieved a milestone last hunt season with a record number of big game hunters in the species’ core range voluntarily using non-lead ammunition or removing lead-infected gut piles from the field to prevent condors from feeding on them, it is not enough for some.
They want more. Now, condor reintroduction partners are expanding voluntary lead reduction efforts towards new groups including small game, bird and varmint hunters, and those that dispatch sick or injured animals in the field, such as ranchers or law enforcement agencies.
In Arizona, a total of 91 percent of the big game hunters voluntarily used non-lead ammunition or removed gut piles from the field. In Utah, 84 percent of big game hunters in the core range did the same. Still, annual trapping and testing of condors from the Arizona-Utah population revealed a only a slight increase in the percent of birds with toxic blood-lead levels from the previous year.
As a result, Chris Parish, condor recovery program director for the non-profit that monitors the condors, The Peregrine Fund, claims that “even a few lead-tainted carcasses can poison multiple condors.” Parish insists that “We need assistance from everyone who shoots animals whose remains might otherwise be left in the field, where scavengers like condors can get to the carcasses.”
The Arizona Game and Fish Department embarked on an unprecedented voluntary lead-reduction campaign aimed at big game hunters 10 years ago. In the early years, the department for voluntary participation from primarily deer hunters on the Kaibab Plateau because data showed that’s where the majority of condors were feeding when lead exposure occurred. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources instituted a similar voluntary program in 2010.
The condors have extended their range. The birds now feed regularly on a variety of domestic and wild animal carcasses in both Arizona and Utah.
“The Kaibab deer hunters should be commended for voluntarily reducing the lead available to condors. We’re now working to share the same message with new groups of shooters that have the potential to greatly influence the success of the condor reintroduction program. Hunters are the original conservationists, and we are confident that varmint, small game and bird hunters will also step up to help when asked,” said Allen Zufelt, condor program coordinator for Arizona Game and Fish.