Lead-Free rules coming to Idaho?

[Macintosh]

Regardless of how anyone feels about it, there is considerable research pointing to the damaging effects of lead ammo on other wildlife. Lots of nuance on the topic that makes it less of a slam dunk in either direction, but it would be equally biased in the other direction to NOT provide this context in a poll, and illustrate the ongoing effort by many people (both inside and outside state and federal wildlife agencies) to move in that direction. Again, that is a fact that is happening now around wildlife management, regardless of what anyone thinks about it. It’s literally “this thing is happening, some people think you should do this and are working to make that happen, what do you think about it?”

So what would it look like for the question to be “unbiased”, when you are forced to acknowledge and work with both sides of the topic?

 

[Rotnguns]

If there’s no diversity of opinion - Edit, or academic independence and integrity - among the peers, then peer review is worthless.

Good comment, and points well taken. A credible peer-review process for a project like this one centers on methods and results.

That's why technical/scientific articles are divided generally:
Abstract (brief summary of methods, results, conclusions)
Introduction (purpose of study, including background and prior work)
Methods (how the study was conducted, including data acquisition and analysis)
Results (data presented here)
Conclusions (here is the "opinion" part - what do the authors infer from the results?)
References Cited

In my experience as a reviewer and an author, our focus is primarily on methods and results, along with the literature review of prior work. We tend to give largess on conclusions drawn, as long as the methods and data are sound and credible. We also tend to be critical of literature reviews that contain glaring gaps or omissions of important or seminal articles and presentations.

 

[TheTone]

He no longer works for IDFG on surveys/research

 

[Rotnguns]

Regardless of how anyone feels about it, there is considerable research pointing to the damaging effects of lead ammo on other wildlife. Lots of nuance on the topic that makes it less of a slam dunk in either direction, but it would be equally biased in the other direction to NOT provide this context in a poll, and illustrate the ongoing effort by many people (both inside and outside state and federal wildlife agencies) to move in that direction. Again, that is a fact that is happening now around wildlife management, regardless of what anyone thinks about it. It’s literally “this thing is happening, some people think you should do this and are working to make that happen, what do you think about it?”

So what would it look like for the question to be “unbiased”, when you are forced to acknowledge and work with both sides of the topic?

Good point, and that's why public-opinion surveys are frankly not worth much. We see time and again that so-called opinion polls are highly divergent, depending upon who is funding the polls, and often don't align with actual election results. That being said, I don't feel questions such as these should have been asked:

Q21. How IMPORTANT would the following be in your decision to participate in an incentive program
encouraging Idaho hunters to switch to lead-free ammunition?
a. A free supply of lead-free ammunition
c. Opportunity to test lead-free ammunition for free
d. Entry into a drawing to win hunting-related prizes;

etc.

 

[Rotnguns]

He no longer works for IDFG on surveys/research

Say, that's very interesting information indeed. Wonder what the backstory is on that?

 

[packgoatguy]

Freedom is important, but understanding what freedom actually means is more important. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean it should be permanently banned for everyone else as well.

For me, this is the key point! At what point does a higher percentage of people choosing to use lead-free projectiles (in Idaho) mean that a law should be passed to ban the remaining percentage of the population from having the choice to use lead projectiles?

 

[Mtndawger]

Looks to me like the survey is really attempting to get a read for the decision makers on how to approach getting to lead free ammunition. That is entirely different than learning hunter attitudes about whether or not lead is harmful for this use case. Regardless waterfowl hunting/hunters/ammo needs to be isolated out of it as it skews the data.