Lead-free Ammunition Distribution Programs

Lead (Pb) is a heavy metal that is not naturally available to wildlife. It is a neurotoxin and metabolic poison and when ingested or inhaled and can negatively affect animals in multiple ways.

One of the ways animals, including golden eagles and other scavenging wildlife, ingest lead is through feeding on the remains of animals that have been shot with lead ammunition.

To study if the use of lead-free ammunition reduces eagle deaths, CSG has launched a new program called Hunters for Eagle Conservation to provide hunters in participating states with free or reduced-cost lead-free ammunition.

CSG contributed to this short, informative video about the unintended effects of lead ammunition in deer hunting. It’s worth sharing with a hunter you know!

Alaska

It has come to light through extensive study that lead ammunition unintentionally left in gut piles by hunters is a source of lead poisoning for scavengers and other wildlife, especially eagles.

Hunters can reduce the occurrence of lead poisoning of wildlife by using non-lead ammunition. Through the Alaska Copper Ammo Challenge, we are offering Alaskan hunters a rebate of up to $80 off two boxes of copper rifle ammunition or up to $50 off two boxes of bullets for reloading. Rebates are limited so act fast to get yours!

Visit AKCopperChallenge.com for more info and to get your rebate.

Georgia

Bald eagles are a threatened species in Georgia and face many hazards including electrocution, vehicle collision, sickness from avian influenza, collisions with powerlines, and poisoning from a variety of sources. Our choice of hunting bullets can directly remove the risk of poisoning from inadvertently consuming particles of spent lead ammunition that remain in gut piles left behind in the field. Our goal is to maintain healthy populations of bald eagles by reducing the amount of lead gut piles on the landscape during hunting seasons.

Hunters have been conservation pioneers and excellent stewards of the landscape, with a commitment to keeping wildlife healthy. That’s why we are offering 1 free box of lead-free ammunition to eligible Georgia hunters. This gives you the chance to sight it in and test its ballistic performance on the range and in the field. Ultimately, we hope many hunters will voluntarily give it a shot when hunting deer or feral hogs.

For more information and to get your ammo, visit HuntersForEagleConservation.org/Georgia.

New York

Hunters are the original leaders in conservation and through their purchases of firearms, ammunition, and hunting licenses they contribute millions of dollars annually to conservation. However, many are unaware that lead ammunition can have unintended negative impacts beyond the animals they harvest. Conventional lead ammunition fragments in many small pieces that can travel up to 18 inches from the point of impact. These small fragments are commonly left behind in the gut piles of field-dressed big game. Many different animals scavenge on those gut piles and are at risk of lead poisoning when they consume lead fragments that were unintentionally left behind.

New York Hunters for Conservation are offering up to $60 in rebates to all big game hunters that voluntarily use certified lead-free ammunition and participate in a post hunt survey for the 2026/2027 regular season.

For more information and to request a rebate, visit HuntersForConservation.org/New-York

South Dakota

It has come to light through extensive study that lead fragments unintentionally left in gut piles by hunters are a source of lead poisoning for scavengers and other wildlife, especially eagles.

Hunters can reduce unintended ingestion of lead by wildlife by voluntarily using lead-free ammunition to hunt big game. For this effort, we are offering eligible South Dakota hunters one box of factory loaded lead-free ammunition or one box of lead-free bullets for reloading.

For more information and to get your ammo, visit
HuntLeadFreeSD.org

Wyoming

Background

Wind energy development has increased substantially in recent years and multiple additional facilities are currently in the pre-development phase. One species that is at risk of being negatively impacted by increased wind energy production is the golden eagle. The placement of wind turbines often overlap with golden eagle habitat resulting in mortalities by direct collision. In response to this problem, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) instituted a policy of “no net loss” for this species.

If the number of golden eagles that die as a direct result of wind development are greater than zero, mitigation methods must be implemented to reduce eagle deaths as compensation. The only currently accepted and broadly used mitigation technique is retrofitting power poles. Both the USFWS and the wind industry have expressed the need to increase the number of acceptable mitigation methods. Lead poisoning is a significant source of golden eagle mortality and the primary cause is thought to be the ingestion of bullets fragments in the offal of harvested game animals.

We recently received funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to test the efficacy of using a non-lead ammunition distribution program as an effective and quantifiable mitigation technique.

Specific Objectives

Implement a lead-free ammunition distribution program in areas with high risk of lead toxicity and high use by golden eagles
Quantify harvest with non-lead ammunition in the study area
Estimate the reduction of golden eagle deaths in the study area

Research Methods
Use of nonlead ammo as mitigation for golden eagle deaths

We are distributing lead-free ammunition to hunters in southeast Wyoming. We are then quantifying the number of game animals harvested with lead-free ammunition and finally, estimating the reduction in golden eagle moralities. At project completion, we will be able to quantify costs to save eagles and provide the USFWS with a scientifically defensible framework to offset golden eagle moralities using lead-free ammunition.

For more information and to get your ammo, visit HuntersForEagleConservation.org/Wyoming.

Learn More About Lead-free Ammo

Conservation Science Global, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded in 2016 to advance conservation and management of our natural resources through science and education.

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