To the editor:
As a hunter, I was disappointed to read the (Feb. 4) letter to the editor which made a lot of scary claims about lead ammunition but did not cite a single statistic to support the claim that traditional ammunition harms humans. Neither the Minnesota DNR nor the CDC have documented a single case of lead poisoning from the consumption of traditionally harvested venison.
I know hunters to be thoughtful and considerate stewards of our natural areas and the wildlife that call them home. Besides being the major source of funding for our conservation efforts in Minnesota and across the country, hunters also provide much needed economic support to our small towns. Hunters support over 12,000 jobs across the state of Minnesota and generate over $93 million in taxes. Many of the taxes hunters pay are part of a “user-pay, user benefit system” that lead to Minnesota being the sixth best state for wildlife conservation contributions in 2019.
I bring all of this up because unfortunately the number of people going out to hunt each year has been falling, and negative letters like the one recently in this paper will only hurt those numbers further. We should be encouraging a new generation of people to get out and experience the excitement of hunting, not suggesting that hunters are poisoning themselves and families. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Durk Stark
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Alexandria, MN
