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Condor lead poisoning persists, impeding recovery, says CU-UCSC study [View all]
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/06/25/condor-lead-poisoning-persists-impeding-recovery-says-cu-ucsc-study[font face=Serif][font size=5]Condor lead poisoning persists, impeding recovery, says CU-UCSC study[/font]
June 25, 2012
[font size=3]The California condor is chronically endangered by lead exposure from ammunition and requires ongoing human intervention for population stability and growth, according to a new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and involving the University of Colorado Boulder.
Since 1982, the condor population has increased from 22 to approximately 400, but only through intensive management including captive breeding, monitoring and veterinary care. The bird’s recovery has been deceptively successful as its primary threat -- poisoning from lead-based bullets ingested as fragments from carrion -- has gone largely unmitigated, according to the study.
“We will never have a self-sustaining wild condor population if we don’t solve this problem,” said lead author Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz. “Currently, California condors are tagged and monitored, trapped twice a year for blood tests and when necessary treated for lead poisoning in veterinary hospitals, and they still die from lead poisoning on a regular basis.”
…
The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that annually from 1997 to 2010, 20 percent of the California condors sampled suffered lead poisoning and needed chelation therapy, a metal detoxification process that also is used for children with lead poisoning. Cumulatively over the time period, nearly half of the population tested was poisoned by lead, with many birds suffering repeat poisoning within and across years.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203141109 ← Not working yet…
June 25, 2012
[font size=3]The California condor is chronically endangered by lead exposure from ammunition and requires ongoing human intervention for population stability and growth, according to a new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and involving the University of Colorado Boulder.
Since 1982, the condor population has increased from 22 to approximately 400, but only through intensive management including captive breeding, monitoring and veterinary care. The bird’s recovery has been deceptively successful as its primary threat -- poisoning from lead-based bullets ingested as fragments from carrion -- has gone largely unmitigated, according to the study.
“We will never have a self-sustaining wild condor population if we don’t solve this problem,” said lead author Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz. “Currently, California condors are tagged and monitored, trapped twice a year for blood tests and when necessary treated for lead poisoning in veterinary hospitals, and they still die from lead poisoning on a regular basis.”
…
The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that annually from 1997 to 2010, 20 percent of the California condors sampled suffered lead poisoning and needed chelation therapy, a metal detoxification process that also is used for children with lead poisoning. Cumulatively over the time period, nearly half of the population tested was poisoned by lead, with many birds suffering repeat poisoning within and across years.
…[/font][/font]
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/19/1203141109.abstract
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