Advisory panel scores with idea of paying hunters to go unleaded

By Michael Doyle | 07/29/2024 01:23 PM EDT

Members of the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council lauded their approach to helping craft a pilot program to curb use of lead ammunition at national wildlife refuges.

Two hunters with their guns pointed upwards at Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge in Kentucky.

Hunting at the Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge in Kentucky. Michael Johnson/Fish and Wildlife Service/Flickr

An Interior Department hunting advisory committee has hit the bull’s-eye with its idea to get lead ammo out of wildlife refuges, the Fish and Wildlife Service said last week.

After considerable behind-the-scenes work, FWS Director Martha Williams prominently credited the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council for its role in developing a pilot program that will reimburse hunters for using lead-free ammunition. The advisory council helped craft the overall concept, as well as some of the program’s particulars, including the selection of seven national wildlife refuges that will participate in the program’s initial testing.

Members of the committee — which provides recommendations to both the Interior and Agriculture departments — said other federal advisory panels could learn some lessons from their experience.

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“The choice to engage, to be realists, to understand the long game and keep the focus on the existing science as well as taking an empirical rather than emotional approach going forward, was what we decided and what we did,” council member Keith Tidball said.

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