Op-Ed: Do you want lead with that?

November 1, 2025 | By Rob Mullen 

Growing up in West Bolton and Jericho, we rarely had steak except when someone in the family shot a deer. I contributed to the larder at 13. Despite mixed feelings about killing the buck, I felt proud when Mom announced at dinner, “Rob has provided the steak tonight.” None of us suspected I was poisoning everyone.

Not much, but like almost everyone in the ’60s, I used lead bullets. Hunting rounds are designed to expand on impact, creating a larger wound channel. But lead is soft, and a mushrooming lead-core bullet can shed a third of its mass on impact, scattering everything from chunks to microscopic particles through the meat. The tiny bits are the danger: they can enter the bloodstream, where lead is highly toxic. The small particles can contaminate surprising portions of venison, posing a particular risk to children.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no safe level of lead in a child’s blood. The often-quoted figure – 3.5 millionths of a gram per 10 liters – isn’t a safety threshold. It’s a statistical “reference level,” meaning 97.5% of American children under 5 have less lead in their blood than that. Any measurable amount of lead causes harm. Worse, it accumulates. Even small, repeated exposures build up over time.

The problem doesn’t stop at the dinner table. Lead left in the field – gut piles, expended shot, or unretrieved game – poisons wildlife. Scavengers that feed on contaminated carcasses ingest those same microscopic fragments. Birds are especially vulnerable because even the large chunks are a danger to them. Their gizzards grind food with swallowed pebbles and grit – and lead fragments, and lead-shot. As the lead is ground into dust and smaller, it enters the bloodstream and can reach fatal concentrations. Jays, ravens, crows, loons (lead fishing tackle), and bald eagles are all victims.

Fortunately, hunters and anglers have a choice. Safe and effective non-lead alternatives are widely available, and the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife encourages their use.

Hollow-point copper bullets, for example, expand and create the same width wound channels as lead, while retaining nearly all their mass. That means greater momentum, deeper penetration, and cleaner kills. Lead’s only real advantage – slightly better long-range aerodynamics beyond a quarter mile due to its higher density (ballistic coefficient) – is not often a factor in our hilly and heavily forested state. For most Vermont hunting situations, copper rounds kill as well or better than lead. The fact that they don’t poison kids or wildlife is icing on the cake.

Copper ammo does cost more, though the difference is shrinking. I stopped hunting seriously after joining Mount Mansfield Union’s cross-country team – we won the 1972 and ’73 state championships – but I enjoy recreational shooting and in my work as a wildlife artist, I’ve carried a rifle for safety in Arctic Alaska – grizzly country. The 405-grain lead rounds for my Marlin .45-70 “Guide Gun” looked like something out of “Jurassic Park” (in fact, that’s the same model Chris Pratt used in the later films). But their blunt tips, required to avoid a catastrophic detonation of the next round’s primer in a tubular magazine, limited performance.

I switched to Hornady Monoflex, a non-lead hollow-point bullet with a polymer ballistic tip – safe in tube magazines. Faster, flatter shooting, and harder hitting, they gave me confidence in the field, but they cost extra. In 2013, those rounds cost about a third more than lead. Today, the difference is closer to 25% and will likely continue to decrease.

When you think about it, paying a few extra dollars for ammunition that doesn’t poison wildlife – or season your venison with heavy metal – is a sensible choice. The switch to non-lead isn’t about guilt or politics; it’s about responsibility and respect for the land, the animals, and the families who share the harvest.

More information is online at Sporting Lead-Free.

West Bolton resident Rob Mullen is a wildlife artist and board chair of the Vermont Wildlife Coalition.