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Thread: Vultures and lead poisoning
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12-04-2018, 11:00 #11
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
My grandfather used to tell me how him as his friends used to shoot each other with pellet guns when they where younger. Nothing above the belt. Although his one mate got cocky and tried to crawl and surprise him and got shot right between the eyes . Anyway, he still had a pellet or two in his legs till they day he passed (in his words "he would have gotten a moerse klap if he told his parents what they where doing"). Never any health complications.....
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13-04-2018, 10:50 #12
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
My dad shot himself in the foot with his pellet gun as a child within a week his while leg was inflamed. Might just have been infection though and not the lead.
This what is happening now is what we call bio accumulation.
It goes something like this. We relatively high amounts of lead in the atmosphere not enough to be harmfull but still its there due to fossil fuels most likely. This is seen in trace amounts showing up in out vegetation again not dangerous but higher than normal. Insects eats the vegetation and gets in the higher amounts of lead stull not dangerous but considerable higher amounts than the vegetation. Insectevores eats the insects over a lifetime and accumalates their lead . Now again at a higer level because of the constant exposure over a lifetime. The insectevores are eaten by carnivores over a lifetime and accumalates a higher amount of lead. Finally the scavengers eats and gets the highest amount of lead now it is high enough to start causing problems. It is the same story with predatory fish and mercury. Blaming this on hunting is evil lies. The blame rests on 200 years of industrialization.
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13-04-2018, 13:09 #13
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
I used to suck the heck out of the old pencils at school.
Changed the colour of my gums and teeth lol but not much else.
You would have to drink about a litre of led paint to have any effect on you.
The rest of the stuff in the paint will kill you first through. either way though I would rather suck a led pencil than get shot with a led bullet.
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13-04-2018, 13:14 #14
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
Pencils contain carbon, not lead.
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13-04-2018, 13:15 #15
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
Wow dude, how old are you that your lead pencils still contained a genuine lead core?
Edit: one minute too late :-)
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13-04-2018, 13:42 #16
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
@Toxxyc - They told us it was lead lol so we have to believe them just the same as we must believe that our led bullets are poising vultures.
Now thw led paint on the pencil may have been a different story
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13-04-2018, 18:25 #17
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13-04-2018, 19:02 #18
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
It's not the metal lead that is dangerous, it is the oxides and sulphates that can cause metals to become toxic, lead oxide is bad news but not part of the bullet make up.
Copper is also not benign, as with lead the compounds can be quite toxic and lead to severe problems if absorbed.
Vulture face many challenges, carcass poisoning, parts trade etc are detrimental practices.
Not sure if it applies to our vultures but in India Voltaren ( Diclofenic) is a huge problem as they are unable to process it and it just kills them. Not sure if it's widely used in livestock in SA though.
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15-04-2018, 02:50 #19
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15-04-2018, 15:24 #20
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Re: Vultures and lead poisoning
As long as you don't plan on leaving your body out in the wilds to be eaten by scavengers once you depart this earth it will be ok.
No you'renot classified as livestock, but here some of us are classified as vermin.
Believe it or not but some communities in Africa do leave corpses out in the wilds for scavengers to devour. Possibly other continents as well.
I was surprised about the vulture and Voltaren deal, story is they do not have the enzymes that break it down so it accumulates in their kidneys until they fail
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