By Salam Fatohi
Anti-science, anti-hunting activists in California are still keeping up with their anti-traditional lead-based hunting ammunition agenda, despite two very clear facts. First, California lawmakers already completely banned lead-based hunting ammunition in 2019, a process that begin in 2008. Hunters in the Golden State report they nearly universally comply with the ban. Second, as of 2023, the California condor population reached an all-time high of 559 condors, 22 more than the previous year’s count.
By 1987, California condors were brought in for captive breeding to protect the endangered condor population. Since then, the very first wild California condor nestling hatched in the wild occurred in 2003. By 2010, the population had risen to 100.
Today, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data shows there are nearly 600 condors flying in the wild. And while habitat destruction, ingestion of lead paint chips, trash and refuse, flying into power lines and even avian bird flu all significantly contribute to the causes of premature California condor deaths each year, anti-hunting activists and agenda-driven scientists continue to publish “research” that blames hunters and the traditional ammunition they prefer to use – but don’t in California because its banned.
Cue yet another “Hunters Using Lead Ammo are the Problem” study in the new year already.
Let’s Ban Already-Banned Ammo Even More
Researchers Bruce Marcot, Nathan Schumaker and Jess Elia authored their study, “Response of California condor populations to reintroductions, reinforcements, and reductions in spent lead ammunition pollution,” and published it in Science Direct in January 2025. The study’s key takeaways include that California condor recovery is “hindered by lead ammunition pollution causing mortality.” The condor population could “decline 81 percent with current lead levels” if reintroductions ceased; and the condor population could increase 569 percent with 66 percent reintroductions and “eliminating lead in food.”
For their study’s baseline, the researchers stated there were 200 female California condors in California in 2024 using a 25-year forecast model.
“Under the scenario of no change in current reinforcements or lead occurrence, [California condor] populations are projected to increase to 259 females… and under the best-case scenario of fully-enhanced reinforcements and complete elimination of lead pollution, populations are projected to increase to 569 females, with other scenarios having intermediate results,” they assert. “Our model predicted substantial improvements in population size even with incremental reductions in lead ammunition pollution.”
But as hunters in California already know, lead-based ammunition is completely prohibited from being used for hunting and, as California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife previously reported, 98.89 percent of hunters comply with the regulation. If hunters haven’t been using traditional ammunition at all in California over the past six years (and longer in certain parts of the state), and they still aren’t using traditional ammunition today, why do anti-hunting activists still blame traditional ammunition for lead poisoning in California condors?
With California’s hunters already complying with a full traditional lead-based ammunition ban, researchers would do well to focus on what other drivers of premature condor deaths exist, rather than pushing to ban something that is already fully banned.
One group did just that. The Hunt for Truth Association combed through the “scientific reports” that were submitted to California lawmakers ahead of their passage of the lead ammunition phase-out legislation and found that those reports were deeply biased. The California condor population did drop to levels of near extinction, but it wasn’t due to hunters using traditional ammunition. A combination of habitat destruction and the “use of DDT, other organochlorine pesticides, and certain rodenticides throughout the remaining condor habitat in Central and Southern California had serious and significant impacts on condor populations,” their analysis found.
The group’s research looked directly at data regarding condor consumption of lead, finding that it wasn’t as easy as singling out lead fragments from animal carcasses leftover by hunters.
“While some researchers maintain that lead ammunition from gut piles or game carrion left in the field by hunters is the primary source of lead exposure to condors, there is compelling evidence of alternative sources of lead in the environment,” the Hunt for Truth investigation revealed. “Such alternative sources of lead include paint chips from old buildings, legacy leaded gasoline in soils, mining wastes, old insecticides and microtrash.”
In fact, two California condors that were studied were actually observed eating paint chips from a fire lookout tower. Those condors were later observed regurgitating those paint fragments to feed their chicks.
“Rarely, if ever, has an actual projectile fragment been found in the digestive tract of a California condor,” the report continued. “However, objects that were thought to be projectile fragments were subsequently found to be pieces of gravel or a ‘woody’ substance, not from ammunition.”
In addition, other surveys and analysis consistently demonstrate California condor premature deaths are often caused by flying raptors colliding with power lines or ingesting trash, sometimes itself containing lead.
Leading Recovery Efforts
When it comes to hunters using traditional lead-based ammunition to harvest birds and game, the science is clear. American hunters – the original conservationists – have used lead-based traditional ammunition for the taking of game for more than 400 years. DDT and habitat destruction overwhelmingly caused serious population declines for some of America’s wildlife species, but American hunters have been the greatest source of support for population rehabilitation in history – all while continuing to use traditional ammo.
That’s because hunters have helped contribute more than $29 billion, when adjusted for inflation, in Pittman-Robertson excise taxes to the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund since 1937. Of which, over 90 percent of funding is directly from firearms and ammunition manufacturers. The fund benefits all by supporting wildlife conservation efforts that encourage abundant wildlife and habitat restoration along with access to public lands for hunters, anglers and other recreationists.
What the science shows is that wildlife populations have never been healthier in America, all while hunters have used traditional hunting ammunition for centuries. NSSF supports a hunter’s choice to choose the right ammunition for their hunt, but calls to outright ban traditional ammunition – and the flawed “science” that leads to those calls – create roadblocks for hunters and are detrimental to the remarkable system that allows America’s abundant wildlife populations to thrive.
Salam Fatohi is the Director of Research for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.