BE FREE: The author and Adult Condor 9, as the bird is being released into the Sespe Wilderness, from where he was captured 15 years earlier as the last free-flying wild California condor.

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New hunting regulations requiring non-lead ammunition in the range of the California condor in Central and Southern California went into effect July 1, to prevent further lead poisonings of the giant, ancient vultures.

I am the cofounder of Project Gutpile, a Web site for California hunters that gives the latest data, technology, availability, and ballistic information for non-lead ammunition. I've been a volunteer for 10 years with the condor recovery effort and have hunted Southern California for blacktail deer and wild pigs for the past 22 years.

I've seen and heard both sides of the lead ammunition debate and have been side-by-side with both hunters and conservationists in the field. Hunting with lead ammo left me no choice but to bury my lead-tainted gut piles. In 1998, I was introduced to the Barnes 100 percent copper bullet. It shot better. It was faster, retained nearly all its weight, and delivered a humane knockout blow to the deer and pigs I shot. Everything a hunter could possibly ask for in a round of ammo.

More importantly, it kept lead out of the environment. For eagles, condors, and black bears, as well as my own and my family’s consumption, lead poisoning is no longer coming from the end of my gun barrel. Lead is a toxic metal. It most adversely affects birds. Vultures and other carrion-eating birds, including raptors, suffer a slow, agonizing death from lead poisoning.

I am just one of 30,000 to 50,000 hunters affected by the new non-lead ammo requirements. We've switched from leaded gas to non-leaded, removed lead from paint, and we continue to pull lead-painted toys from the shelves. Why the resistance with lead ammo? It was done with bird shot for waterfowl hunting, by replacing lead with more than a dozen non-toxic shot types in the 1990s.

In this initial year of the ban, non-lead ammo may be tough to buy over the shelves, unless you go to a Bass Pro Shop or Cabelas—or you can purchase it online. Hands-free phones are also hard to find, but I'm sure most of us will take the time to research and invest in one since using a cell phone without one, while driving, is also now illegal. The simple rule of supply and demand will make non-lead ammo more available.

There has been misinformation in the press regarding the price of non-lead ammo. The price for a box of non-lead ammo, ready to shoot, is on average $3-$5 more than for lead. That's it. The prices of rifles, hunting knives, optics, and all hunting gear have also gone up dramatically in the past 20 years.

Those in the hunting community reflect on what California must have looked like 300-400 years ago. I have witnessed increased growth, noise, and pollution looming over the coastline during the past 40 years. We cannot continue on this path without eliminating birds, fish, and wildlife. Are we so selfish as to resist the slight inconvenience of switching over to non-lead ammo, to preserve the wildlife we have remaining?

My first sighting of a California condor took my breath away. I can't speak for other hunters, but I know we will have robbed our children of a magnificent bird unless we get the lead out of the food chain. I was taught at an early age to only kill what you need to eat, to respect all wildlife, and to leave as little impact on this earth as humanly possible. I will continue to hunt the mountains, hills, and valleys of Central and Southern California with all respect to all wildlife that have called it home long before you or I were ever here.

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