NRA Uses Propaganda to Promote

NRA Uses Propaganda to Promote Lies about Condors & Lead Poisoning

Those who want to help the recovery program for the endangered California Condor are up against the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA, 2011), and the fight to preserve and restore the species is not going to be won easily because of the propaganda put out by the NRA. The main issue is lead poisoning. Condors "are highly susceptible to lead toxicity," according to the Ventana Wildlife Society. Many other respected wildlife and conservation organizations concur that even small fragments of lead bullets, or shotgun pellets, can kill a condor, depending on how long the lead is in the bird's digestive system. Condors are relatives of the vulture and unlike raptors, the California Condor feeds only on carrion (dead animals).

What happens is this: a deer hunter in California shoots his buck, takes the best meat from the deer and leaves the "gut-pile" of the deer on the ground. The condor finds the fresh kill -- with the shattered lead fragments from the bullets still to be found throughout the remains -- and after ingesting the deer's remains, the condor becomes very ill. If the condor is not flown to a hospital and had its digestive tract cleared of the lead, it will die. And so with the evidence in abundance that lead kills condors -- a bird that the state and private organizations have spent millions of dollars trying to restore -- the state passed a law a few years ago that in certain condor areas of California only non-lead ammo is legal for hunters to use. The most popular choice of those responsible hunters that have followed the law is copper ammunition.

But the NRA uses its very effective propaganda machine -- frankly lying about lead bullets, and smearing bona fide scientists that report the medical / biological facts.

The California condor is the largest bird in North America. It has a wingspan of nine and a half feet and can fly over a hundred miles on a single day, according to the Ventana Wildlife Society (2011). In the late 1980s, the California Condor came within an eyelash of extinction. The giant birds' population had been shrinking down from thousands a couple hundred years ago to about 22 birds in 1987. They had been shot, poisoned, and pushed to the brink of extinction. At that time the remaining birds were taken into captivity and no condors were flying free again until 1992, when the recovery program was launched.

Today, there are nearly 400 California Condors in the wild (in California, Arizona, Oregon and Baja California), all being monitored by biologists, but the recovery program faces constant setbacks due to the condors eating carrion with lead fragments in it. The National Park Service (NPS, 2008) explains that "Numerous scientific studies have reached a consensus: lead poisoning is the biggest threat facing the successful recovery of the California condor." The NPS asserts that "More than 500 scientific studies published since 1898 have documented that worldwide, 134 species of wildlife are negatively affected by lead," including condors.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the NRA -- an organization that indeed does a lot of good, and has millions of responsible hunters as members -- has attacked the science regarding lead poisoning and has taken the position that the law in California calling for non-lead ammunition in condor habitat areas is really an attempt to "ban firearms." That is ridiculous. This has always been the NRA mantra when gun safety advocates try to pass legislation: they're trying to take NRA members' guns away. This is a patently absurd but powerful piece of propaganda. As to the link between lead and condor mortality, the NRA website on July 22, 2011, reports there is "no scientific evidence to begin with"; the NRA claims all studies linking lead to condors are "flawed." Actually, the NRA's assertions are flawed. The NRA promotes and repeats falsehoods ad nauseam, as though truly intelligent and thoughtful people can be propagandized into believing anything.