Ammo survey triggers fears of lead-bullet ban

Copies of an eight-page survey, or letters about how to take the survey online, have arrived in the mailboxes of 4,200 Oregon hunters asking them about their use and knowledge of lead ammunition.

The survey is a collaboration of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon State University.

"I want to make real clear that the department is not proposing any kind of ban on lead ammunition," said Ron Anglin, the department's Wildlife Division administrator. "We just know that this is a topic of interest among folks, and we're trying to get out ahead of the issue and make sure that we have our finger on the pulse of what constituents think."

Despite the reassurances that also were echoed in quotes by Anglin in the initial press release from Oregon State University announcing the survey, the push-back was almost immediate and emphatic.

"A Ban On Lead Ammo Is On The Horizon," was the headline on an email sent out by the Oregon Firearms Federation within hours of the arrival of the emailed press release. The federation urges recipients who did not receive a survey to write comments to the special email address that has been set up to receive those.

To make your feelings known, pro or con, the address is ODFW.wildlifeinfo@state.or.us

Initial letters informing people that they had been selected to take the survey went out June 12. On June 17, hard copies of the surveys went out to 50 percent of those on the list, while the other half of those in the survey pool were sent letters about how to do the surveys online, said Dana Sanchez, an assistant professor and extension wildlife specialist in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at OSU.

The first completed online surveys began showing up June 18, she said.

A reminder post card will be mailed June 24 to those who have not turned in surveys, and for those who were directed to take an online survey but didn't complete one, written copies will be mailed on July 8.

"Some of what they're doing is testing what are the response rates between the online and the hard copies just in the numbers of people that respond," Anglin said about The Oregon State University Survey Research Center, which is conducting the survey for Fish and Wildlife and the university's Wildlife Extension Program. "And then is there a difference between how people respond, results-wise, from online vs. the hard copies?"

Lead ammunition has been a controversial topic on state and national levels.

California passed a law in 2013 that will ban all lead ammunition for hunting beginning in 2019. Other states have adopted voluntary measures that encourages hunters to use of ammunition that does not contain lead.

"There's been a number of different efforts nationally to get the EPA to ban the use of lead on public lands for any kind of shooting, and all of those have been unsuccessful to date," Anglin said. "So the fish and wildlife agencies as a whole nationally are aware of the controversy surrounding lead, that there's some different factions out there.

"Nationally the fish and wildlife agencies have been talking about it, and what it means, and looking at how do we make sure that the people who are our primary users, which is what's driving our survey, how do we make sure what they really think?"

Both Anglin and Sanchez encouraged those selected to take the survey to complete it.

"We're all urging folks who received the survey to please respond because our data is only as strong as the number of folks who choose to participate, and every bit of input will give us a better picture of how people feel, what they know, and what kinds of ammunition they choose to use," Sanchez said.

"They really are looking for information from our Oregon resident hunters, so the more voices that we can include in the data set, the better."

hemiller@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6725 or follow at twitter.com/henrymillersj and friend at facebook.com/hmillersj