Lead Shot Killed Geese
Wainscott fowl ate it; where is uncertain
By John McDonald. STAFF WRITER
Poisoning from lead gunshot they somehow ingested killed
about 100 Canada geese in less than a two-week period at a small pond in
Wainscott, officials of the state Department of Environmental Conservation
said yesterday. "We suspect these geese got this lead poisoning someplace
else," said Larry Penny, a naturalist for East Hampton Town. Penny said
he was alerted to the problem two weeks ago by noted author Shana Alexander,
who lives on Wainscott Pond. "She said people were putting them out of
their misery," Penny said.
Penny said that from Dec. 10 until early this week,
about 100 geese had died in and around Wainscott. Most died from the poisoning,
but some were killed by foxes after illness slowed them down. Still others
were killed by people trying to prevent their suffering, he said. The pond
is not accessible to the public, but several private homes border its shore,
such as Alexander's and the estate of cosmetics executive Ronald Lauder,
he said.
DEC investigators collected several of the dead
birds and conducted tissue studies last week at the department's lab in
upstate Delmar, according to Ray Cowan, the department's regional director.
Nearly all of the birds examined by the DEC had lead shotgun pellets in
their gizzards and enough lead in their systems to have caused death, he
said. The source of the lead pellets is a matter of speculation, Cowan
said.
While lead shot is banned for use in hunting waterfowl
throughout the United States, it is permitted in most parts of Canada,
including the tundra region where the dead birds had spent the summer.
Lead shot also can be used in the United States by hunters of ground birds
and small game and by skeet shooters, Cowan said. Geese typically eat seeds
and grasses and gobble up small stones from underwater mud to aid their
digestion. Waterfowl hunters often stake out the same spot for an entire
hunting season, and can litter a small area with thousands of shotgun pellets.
Cowan said small game hunters roam more often in their quest for game and
pose less of a problem with lead shot.
While naturalists recommend steel shot because it
poses fewer health problems to wildlife, hunters complain that steel shot
wears out their gun barrels quicker than lead. After a similar incident
last fall, in which a large number of geese died at a Calverton pond after
ingesting lead shot, Cowan said his staff checked out all skeet shooting
ranges in the area and found no evidence of geese droppings near them.
The Wainscott investigation concluded that - based on the fat content of
the birds and the shape of their beaks - they had migrated to Long Island
from northern Canada, Cowan said. Penny said that he believes the dead
geese ate the lead shot in Canada. But another possibility, he said, was
that they uncovered from the mud in Wainscott lead shot that was used prior
to the U.S. ban about 20 years ago.
Copyright 1994, Newsday Inc. John McDonald, Lead Shot Killed Geese Wainscott
fowl ate it; where is uncertain., Newsday, 12-23-1994, pp A20. Copyright
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