Dear Watchers

Dear Watchers:

I was not entirely surprised by the subject matter of your April cover story on Judson Lake and its relation to the lead poisoning of wintering trumpeter swans. However, the sensationalistic nature of the article, and the manner in which the author cherry-picked statements from a relatively large body of existing work on the issue, is very reminiscent of the Bush Administration’s trumped-up case for attacking the people of Iraq.

I am one of many volunteers working on this issue (as are a number of other Whatcom Watch readers and volunteers), and I am familiar with much of the literature referred to in the article, as well as having been in attendance at the stakeholders meeting in La Connor referred to by the author. I have also attended other meetings on this issue at which the author was not in attendance. Yes, there are lots of lead shot in Judson Lake, but there are also lots of lead shot in Lakemount, and Laxton Lake—just to mention a few of the roosting sites in the area—many of which have unknown levels of lead shot because they have not been thoroughly investigated.

To be clear, just because the swans die on their night roosting sites doesn’t mean that is where they are picking up lead shot. Many agricultural fields are currently, and have in the past been used for hunting; and these are the same areas where wintering swans forage daily. Most lead poisoned swans are found on night roost sites such as Judson Lake simply because they have no energy to forage during the day.

Adequately sampling the large range of foraging areas is an impossible task. The current strategy to radio-collar and track swans during their activities, and then correlate those movements with those swans found lead poisoned, makes sense to me. This is the strategy that our Audubon chapter, and many other stakeholder groups have supported.

We aren’t working on this problem for the money involved. Most of us donate our time and effort because we want to help these magnificent creatures survive a fate that our species seems to have dealt them. Unfortunately, resources are very meager in this effort. I fully support the efforts of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, Canadian Wildlife Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and others to fully ascertain the scope of the lead shot contamination problem as it is affecting the swan population before costly remediation efforts begin.

The very process the author states to be the cause of Judson Lake’s “public enemy #1” status—that of eutrophication and infilling—is actually acting to remediate the lake given the fact that lead shot has been banned for waterfowl hunting in the U.S. and Canada for a number of years, and that the existing lead shot will surely not “float to the surface” as it is being covered by decaying organic matter and sediment (admittedly, this “remediation” process could take many, many years). However, I can certainly understand that the author might be concerned that his family’s property could eventually be transformed by this process from waterfront to pasture.

Interested readers should contact one or all of the stakeholder groups involved for a less self-serving view of the lead shot problem in our region. Please keep in mind that this problem affects many waterfowl species in addition to wintering swans, and will no doubt require an enormous and widespread effort to fully correct. §