U.S. Water News Online
WASHINGTON -- Many anglers would rather fish with a jig than anything else. Most crappie anglers use nothing but jigs, which also are popular with trout anglers. Many bass anglers believe they aren't really fishing if they aren't heaving a lead-headed jig & pig. Most anglers use lead split shot in their various rigs.
At one time or another, just about every angler uses lead. But there is a movement to ban the use of lead in fishing, just as it was in waterfowl hunting a generation ago. Lead seemed as essential to duck hunters before 1970 as it seems to anglers now. But eventually, alternatives were found.
Evidence is slowly growing that lead left by anglers is poisoning wildlife. Birds pick up split shot, jigs, etc., mistaking them for tiny crustaceans or grit. The soft metal is ground away in their gizzards and becomes lead salts that are a powerful poison.
The birds lose mobility and then are killed and eaten by predators, which in turn are poisoned. At least 26 kinds of birds are known to be at risk to lead fishing tackle. Secondary poisoning may be killing more wildlife than direct poisoning.
Evidence of poisoning by fishing tackle is by no means as strong as it was concerning spent shotgun pellets. The strongest evidence involves loons, which are in mysterious decline in some parts of the U.S. and Canada. One study indicated that loon mortality by lead was more than 50 percent in some New Hampshire lakes.
Lead sinkers weighing less than an ounce were banned in Britain in 1987 because of the harm they were causing swans and other diving and wading birds. Two years ago, New Hampshire banned the use of lead sinkers weighing less than an ounce and jigs measuring less than an inch in length. Maine banned their sale. Last year, lead bans of various kinds were discussed in the legislatures of Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. Only Vermont took action, beginning an education campaign to get anglers to quit using lead voluntarily.
Also last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banned the use of lead tackle in three national refuges, in Montana, Wyoming, and Michigan. It announced plans for bans in 13 more states, but those plans have been shelved indefinitely.
Neither Missouri nor Illinois have many loons, but they do have birds that feed in the water, including swans, herons and wood ducks.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed restrictions on lead in fishing in 1994, but lawmakers did not pass it. Most observers believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is unlikely to revive the idea under the new Republican administration.
If more states pass anti-lead regulations, though, pressure will grow for federal action. Otherwise, tackle manufacturers will have to deal with a patchwork of regulations across the country.
The fishing tackle industry has been dubious about lead bans, not because its members don't like loons but because they can't sell the lead replacement products they already make. About 20 manufacturers already offer non-toxic fishing gear made from ceramics and metals and mixtures of metals such as tin, steel, tungsten, and bismuth.
Except for a few areas, notably New England and California, sales have been slow. Many retailers don't even stock it because it is more expensive than lead, said Randy Dickerson, whose Jadico Ltd. at Camdenton, Mo., is the country's largest producer of tackle items made of bismuth. Bismuth is a metal about as heavy as lead but which costs about 10 times as much.
"You just can't sell the stuff where it isn't required because fishermen don't see the sense of paying 3-10 times more for non-toxic alternatives," he said.
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