Plea For Our Wildlife

I received this message with a sincere request for support:

Dear Matthew,

Help Get the Lead Out - Make your gift today.
Most people think environmental lead poisoning has been banned because lead has been removed from paint and gasoline. But thanks to the NRA, 83,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment every year. Year in, year out.

The effect on wildlife is staggering. Bald eagles, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, condors, herons and doves die incredibly painful lead-poisoning deaths. Wolves, bears and panthers are also poisoned as the lead works its way up the food chain.

To stop the needless carnage, the Center for Biological Diversity is launching a once-in-a-lifetime campaign in August to ban all lead bullets everywhere in the United States.

It's the biggest anti-lead poisoning campaign in history, and we need your help to succeed. Please donate generously today to our Get the Lead Out campaign and help us save bald eagles and condors from the terrible pain of lead poisoning.

We squared off against the NRA to shut down lead bullets in condor habitat in California and won. We're fighting the NRA now to replace lead bullets with copper and steel shot on federal lands in northern Arizona and southern Utah.

We'll win there as well, but the real showdown will come when we move to ban all lead bullets nationwide.

There is simply no reason to keep using archaic, poisonous lead bullets anymore. Nontoxic steel, copper and alloy bullets are readily available in all 50 states. Lead bullets can be taken completely out of circulation within a year if we can muster the legal firepower and political will to make it happen.

The NRA will spend millions to stop us. It has already fired up its membership by accusing us of being "extremists." But what's so "extreme" about insisting that golden eagles not starve to death because their digestive system has been barbarically shut down by lead poisoning?

The NRA will spend $100 for every dollar we spend. It will pull out all the stops against us. But despite that, we can win this battle if we have your support - just as we did in California.

Please, donate generously today to our Get the Lead Out campaign to help level the playing field against the NRA juggernaut.

Thank you for your support,

Kierán Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity

P.S. Eagles and bears aren't the only ones needlessly poisoned by lead bullets. Children and pregnant women are as well. A recent study found that between 20 and 87 percent of game killed by lead bullets contained unsafe levels of lead when served as food. Please help us stop all lead poisoning for all species, once and for all, with a donation to our Get the Lead Out campaign.


I have responded thusly:

Hello Kind Sirs,

I live in CT and the Eagles have made a grand come-back, I love them. There is, of course, much road to be traveled yet, and great struggle ahead.
I love the outdoors and feel compelled to write this note as a response to a communication I have received from you fine folks.

Please do not confuse guns or ammo with a hostility towards the outdoors.

It is the 2nd Amendment enthusiasts and the sport anglers who have done the most for this nation's wild spaces, this I deeply believe. We wish and struggle for the health of the Wild because we love it so.

I understand the need to transition away from lead, without hysteria. It will take more than one year, and there should be caveats for rounds to be used in self defense which will not be unleashed to disrupt organisms out in the field.

Please respond to this note if you will, I send it in honesty with a constructive intent.

I thank you for your determined efforts and I respect your love of our delicate Earth deeply, I share this need to protect and preserve.

Carefully choose your adversaries, they may be difficult to determine..

They are some of the ones in office, they are some of the ones with legal degrees, they are some of the ones on zoning boards, and they are intermingled with individuals who may be sincere and may also be misguided. A difficult web of society, I wish success for those who work to preserve our spaces, and I foresee an accusation of being misguided myself.

Again,

Thank You Sincerely,

Also, please let me know in what way I can volunteer in the NYC tri-state area, my love and concern for our environment is deep and genuine,

MC

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will post any responses here