Schwarzenegger, Gun Owners, Environmentalists Battle Over Lead-Based Ammo

A controversy is brewing in California over proposed restrictions on lead-based ammunition, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state legislators, fish and game commissioners, gun owners and environmental groups taking opposing stances on the issue, according to news from both sides, pro and con.

The brouhaha started with Assemblyman Pedro Nava's (D, Santa Barbara) proposal to require hunters in areas occupied by the endangered California condor to use non-lead ammunition when hunting coyotes and big game. Nava has pointed to scientific evidence showing that lead from spent ammunition is not only hampering the condor's recovery but harming other birds of prey, other wildlife and humans as well.

"The elimination of lead ammunition will not only benefit the condor, it will also benefit all wildlife and the environment," Nava said in discussing the proposed legislation earlier this year.

Nava's proposal, Assembly Bill 821, has since passed both the state Assembly and Senate and is now awaiting Gov. Schwarzenegger's signature to be signed into law. However, the Gun Owners of California (GOC) is actively seeking a gubernatorial veto, and pro-lead-ban Fish and Game Commissioner Judd Hanna was forced to resign last week -- largely due to, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, pressure from two dozen Republican legislators and the National Rifle Association.

In a Sept. 13 email to fellow commissioners and supporters, Hanna defended Nava's legislation, which is being opposed by other member of the commission.

"The matter at stake here is not my position on the Commission; it is the information itself: scientific data to support a thesis," Hanna wrote. "The mission of the Commission has been deflected by a special interest group. Thus, an issue bearing on one of the Commission's most important mandates, protection of an endangered species, has been hijacked."

Gov. Schwarzenegger has until Oct. 22 to sign or veto AB 821. If he signs it, the ammunition restrictions would take effect July 1, 2008.

"Putting the condor on the state quarter isn't good enough; the governor needs to sign the Condor Preservation Act into law, to ensure that condors do not continue to be poisoned by lead ammunition from hunting," said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

In a statement on its Website, the GOC said, "This is the resurrection of the bill to ban lead ammunition, same as 2006's AB 2123 by Assemblyman Pedro Nava. The legislation specifies that the ban applies in the vicinity where the California Condor flies. In 2005, Assemblyman Nava carried the same bill, AB 1002, and received back intense GOC opposition. The bill failed. We will be working to make sure it fails again this year. Concerns of Sportsmen and predicted revenue losses to the state doomed both bill's passage in previous years."

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, lead poisoning is the leading cause of death for condors reintroduced into the wild. The birds ingest the metal by eating from carcasses that have been shot with lead-based ammunition. The center says at least 15 condors in California and Arizona are believed to have been killed by lead poisoning since 1992, and 17 in California alone have been sickened in recent months after eating lead ammunition.

Listed as critically endangered, the California condor lives only in Baja California, the Grand Canyon and the western coastal mountains of the U.S. At last count, only 127 remained free in the wild.

The Center for Biological Diversity, "Schwarzenegger Fires Fish and Game Commissioner in Effort to Prevent Regulation of Toxic Lead Ammunition." URL: (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/condor-lead-09-17-2007.html)