EOC 114: Milton Friend Explains How Lead Shot became Banned from Use in Waterfowl Hunting

Today we are revisiting the issue of lead poisoning in wildlife.  This is a topic that I’ve spent quite a bit of time investigating, as it was central to the story behind my first film, Scavenger Hunt - which was about the connections between California condor conservation efforts and the issue of lead poisoning from spent ammunition. This issue has been in the headlines recently - the Obama administration in its final weeks in office issued an order to phase our lead-based ammunition and fishing tackle from all lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - these areas included all National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges.  The response to this action was predictable - it was applauded by many conservation groups, and provoked lead ammo industry lobbyists to repeat their claims that there’s no proof of lead’s negative impact on wildlife populations. Once Donald Trump became our president - his new head of the Department of the Interoir Ryan Zinke moved to overturn this plan to phase out the use of lead ammo on these federally managed lands - again, a predictable move. Today we are sharing with you an archival interview, recorded while we were working on our film Scavenger Hunt, with the founding director of the USGS Wildlife Health Center, Milton Friend.  Milton worked for decades to get lead shot banned from use in waterfowl hunting, and is therefore intricately familiar with the type of political maneuvering that we’re seeing right now in regard to the lead ammunition issue.  He points out many similarities between his fight to end the use of lead shot for waterfowl hunting and the current incarnation of this fight against the use of lead based ammunition for hunting generally. Just to be clear - the use of lead shot for waterfowl hunting was officially banned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991 - although there were complications with the implementation of this ban as you’ll hear Milton discuss. Although this interview was recorded back in 2012 - it remains extremely relevant to our current situation with the lead ammunition issue.