Lead poisoning kills too many birds; hunters and anglers can do something about it

The recent deaths of geese in DuPage County remind us how everyone should play a role in keeping our environment safe.

In one positive example of doing just that, the Lakeside Center at McCormick Place completed the installation in September of a special film that birds can see on its windows.

The structure went from being one of Chicago's most dangerous buildings to birds — one that lured about 1,000 birds to their deaths on a single night in October 2023 — to a building where hardly any birds died from colliding into some of Lakeside's windows in this fall's migration, said Annette Prince, director Chicago Bird Collision Monitors.

"It's a resounding success," Prince said. "It was astronomically successful."

Individuals can replicate that success on a smaller scale by putting similar special film on the windows of their homes, which is affordable, especially as a do-it-yourself project, Prince said. For advice on doing so, people can check out the American Bird Conservatory's recommendations at abc.org or send an inquiry to info@birdmonitors.net.

But in a different example, one where not enough is being done to protect the environment, from mid-November to early December, more than two dozen geese were diagnosed with lead poisoning, and 11 died, Bob Chiarito reported for the Sun-Times last week. Most of them were found near the Lombard Lagoon in the western suburb.

The source of the lead is undetermined at this point, but a likely cause is lead shot, which is used in hunting and competitive clay shooting and is preferred by some shooters because of its malleability, low cost and density. Goose deaths from lead are a recurring problem.

Lead also is used for fishing weights. Earlier this month, a migratory loon that died after swallowing a single lead sinker washed up on a beach in Glencoe. Ingesting as few as one or two lead pellets can kill waterfowl. Prince said loons are particularly vulnerable because they are diving birds and often die from swallowing sinkers.

Some gun enthusiasts and anglers resist switching to alternative ammunition because it can be more expensive. But that's because they don't factor in the cost to the environment. Others aren't aware of the perils of lead shot or fishing sinkers.

Nontoxic ammunition has been required since 1991 for waterfowl hunting nationwide, but not in many areas used for hunting or target shooting. The lead kills millions of nontarget birds and contaminates drinking water, harms wildlife and poses a health risk to pets and children playing in water or grass.

It also is a risk for people who eat game killed with lead ammunition. A regularly used hunting field is probably littered with about 400,000 pieces of lead shot per acre, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Obama administration banned lead ammunition on some federal land near the end of President Barack Obama's second term, but then-President Donald Trump's Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke revoked that on his first day on the job.

An effort to require nontoxic fishing sinkers failed a decade ago in the Illinois Legislature. Instead, the bill was converted into an educational notice about lead's hazards on the Department of Natural Resource's website.

The lead that killed the geese in DuPage County could have come from lead shot that was fired into the air or that was recently exposed by low water levels. Lead shot is especially bad for birds because it gets ground up in their gizzards and absorbed.

Because birds fly from one area to another, it's not clear where they encountered the lead. Several of the birds with lead poisoning had banding indicating they were from Lombard, which suggests they were in a nonmigratory group.

Lead shot and sinkers can mostly pass through predatory mammals if they eat prey containing lead shot or sinkers, but predatory mammals have strong digestive systems and will absorb some of the lead.

One Illinois bird enthusiast told us of hearing from two others recently about a red-tailed hawk and a snowy owl electrocuted by high-voltage power lines. The modern world holds enough risks for wildlife without adding to it by unnecessarily distributing lead into the ecosystem.

Illinois and the nation need to do more to keep lead from getting into the environment. As long as the state and federal government hesitate to universally require that, it's up to everyone else to keep it in mind.

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