In a story that will sound strikingly familiar to advocates of the endangered California Condor out West, preliminary findings from a study in North Dakota indicate that people who eat wild game harvested with lead bullets appear to have higher levels of lead in their blood than people who don’t.

Condors rely on animal carcasses – including those left behind by hunters – for nourishment, and risk ingesting dangerously high levels of lead from ammunition left in the meat. California recently enacted a ban on the use of lead ammunition within the condor’s range after scientists proved a link between condor deaths and the use of lead bullets.

“This could really be a situation where the California Condor has sounded the alarm on a potential public health issue,” said Graham Chisholm, conservation director for Audubon California.

The North Dakota study was conducted by the North Dakota Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study has prompted the North Dakota Department of Health to issue warnings to minimize the risk of harm to people who are most vulnerable to the effects of lead, such as children and pregnant women.

The department doesn’t call for a ban on lead ammunition, but does note that “the most certain way of avoiding lead bullet fragments in wild game is to hunt with non-lead bullets.” One of the key elements that prompted California legislators to support that state’s ban on lead ammunition was the increasing available of non-lead ammunition.

A recent report commissioned by Audubon California recently found that although the ban on lead ammunition in the Condor range that went into effect July 1, the species will not be able to survive in the wild without substantial support from humans without a statewide or regional ban. That same report also noted the importance of hunters to condor recovery, as they provide a significant source of food to the foraging species.

“It’s possible that the answer in North Dakota will be the same as it is in California, and that’s non-lead ammunition,” added Chisholm. “Improvements in technology mean that hunting – which is so important to both people and condors – is possible without risking public health or the extinction of an important bird.”