About Us

Across the country, anti-lead ammunition and anti-hunting groups have lobbied Fish and Game commissions, federal and state legislatures, and federal and state agencies to ban the use of traditional ammunition based upon claims that scavenging wildlife consume lead projectiles left in the carcasses and/or gut piles of game left in the field by hunters.

By and large these proposals have been rejected. But in the wake of the adoption of a statewide ban on the use of lead ammunition for hunting in California, there have been renewed and concerted efforts to ban the use of lead ammunition nationally.

There is substantial evidence that the groups behind the proposed ban on the use of traditional ammunition have based their claims on faulty scientific studies, in many cases motivated by an underlying anti-hunting agenda. Many of the research papers used by anti-lead ammunition proponents to support lead ammunition bans have consistently been critiqued for questionable scientific methodology. These researchers have used selectively incorporated (cherry-picked) scientific data to support their conclusions, while consistently ignoring abundant alternative sources of lead found in the environment that are likely the actual cause of lead poisoning in some wildlife.    

In distorting the facts regarding the use of lead ammunition, activists undermine public interests, threaten hunters’ and recreational shooters’ rights, stifle important conservationist efforts, and, ironically, threaten the fragile California condor population and other natural wildlife resources that they purport to champion.

In 2007, proponents of one of the nation’s first lead ammunition bans, California Assembly Bill (AB) 821, claimed that California condors were being poisoned by consuming hunters’ lead ammunition. They promised that if hunters stopped using lead ammunition in the condor range, the lead poisoning would cease. The California Fish and Game Commission did not accept these claims. So the proponents leap-frogged the Commission’s scientific review process and instead went straight to the California Legislature where they had pre-disposed politicians willing to pass the law without giving it the scrutiny that the proposal would have received had it gone through the usual process with the Fish and Game Commission. The Legislature passed AB 821, banning the use of lead ammunition in the Condor range.

Despite the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s records showing a 99% compliance rate by hunters with the AB 821 lead ammunition ban, a comparison of pre-ban and post-ban blood-lead data from condors in the “condor range” indicates that the incidence of lead exposure and poisoning in condors remains static, or has increased slightly! This failure of the lead ammunition ban has compounded the problem and left multiple condors dead. The failure of California’s lead ammunition ban to decrease lead poisoning proves that alternative sources of lead in the environment are causing lead poisoning in condors.

This reality should not be ignored because of an ill-conceived agenda to ban lead ammunition or hunting.

In response to the threats posed to hunting and recreational shooting sports, like-minded environmental and conservation groups took the initial lead and engaged the expertise of the environmental and civil rights law firm of Michel & Associates, P.C., (a firm that represents many of the coalition members discussed below) along with reputable scientists, experts, consultants and volunteers to defend lead ammunition and top preserve our traditional hunting heritage. Since 2003, these professionals have engaged in the extended process of investigating, procuring, and analyzing tens of thousands of documents from public records requests concerning the California Condor, Bald and Golden eagles, Mourning Dove, and other wildlife. Most importantly, the documents reviewed included some of the researchers’ “original data” (to the extent they agree to produce it. Many refuse to) and internal documents not previously obtained or reviewed by independent analysts or the public at large. The investigation uncovered substantial evidence that the groups behind the assault on traditional ammunition have based their efforts on faulty science, as a result of researchers using questionable scientific methodologies, sampling protocols, and data to advance an anti-lead ammunition or anti-hunting agenda.

The research and information presented by Hunt For Truth Association through HuntForTruth.org has raised serious questions about the purported causal link between traditional ammunition and lead poisoning and/or mortality in California condors and other wildlife. Many groups and individuals now support Hunt For Truth’s research and efforts. 

Hunt For Truth hopes to educate the public about the LEGAL ramifications of the lead ammunition ban and predator reintroduction campaigns and to keep people current with the latest NEWS on what is occurring scientifically and politically in the ongoing debate regarding lead ammunition and hunting and natural resource conservation policy. Where science unquestionably supports wise conservation management decisions, HFTA supports wildlife managers in their efforts to conserve our natural wildlife resources. But, when the anti-lead ammunition advocates offer ideologically biased, distorted, and unsupportable information and/or faulty science to impose regulations that do not implement sound wildlife conservation measures, HFTA will work to expose such agendas and disseminate the truth.