16 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY FEBRUARY 19-25, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com biologist Mike Stake spends much of his time on the road, driving through condor county and visiting gun stores and property owners to hand out free non-lead ammunition. Since the nonprofit started its non-lead ammo program in 2012, it has handed out more than 18,535 boxes of bullets. (The initiative was inspired by a similar concept in Arizona, where the use of nonlead ammunition remains voluntary, not mandatory, for hunters. California is the only state where it is required.) All condors are tagged with radio transmitters and about half with GPS devices, enabling the VWS team to look at a GIS map of where they are landing and likely foraging. Stake looks at those pings on a map then compares them to property owners, prioritizing owners whose land is popular among the birds, with an emphasis these days on San Benito County. For interested property owners in condor hotspots, Stake will drive to them and deliver the ammo. (All others can show up at the VWS office next to Ryan Ranch in Monterey to pick it up.) “Everyone is generally interested in free ammunition and that makes my job fairly easy,” Stake says. “It’s not too difficult to give things away. The challenge is the idea of, ‘Nothing’s free.’ That’s the initial reaction, so we rely quite a lot on word of mouth. We don’t want to lose the reputation of being only givers, not takers. It is a barrier that we need to break down a little bit with people who are not familiar with our program.” The trust has been a long time in the making. When the state first banned non-lead ammo for hunting, hunting groups were skeptical. “The signing of AB 711 signals the unfortunate end of a unified effort by the sportsmen’s community and professional fish and wildlife managers to oppose this unnecessary effort to chip away at hunters’ rights in California,” the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation wrote in a statement in 2013. The group was one of a coalition of 23 that signed a letter opposing the bill. CSF dismissed proponents as “well-funded anti-hunting groups.” In the years since, VWS has been trying to flip that perception, handing out free ammo. But tighter regulations mean that for vendors, VWS included, ammo distribution has gotten a little less conversational—there’s no more rolling up to a ranchers’ meeting and handing out bullets from the tailgate of a truck. Instead there are IDs and mandatory background checks. “It’s so unfortunate this issue started with a ban,” says Kelly Sorenson, executive director of Ventana Wildlife Society. “It didn’t start with education or a dialogue. Ever since, we’ve been playing catch-up to build trust and respect. We’ve been doing that one by one, face to face, after all these years.” He is hopeful that now they’ve earned that trust. And increasingly, VWS is stepping into a realm beyond traditional wildlife conservation and advocating for easier access to ammunition. ••• It is not illegal to buy or sell lead ammo in California, just to hunt with it. But the buying and selling part—the supply chain—is a problem when it comes to the hunting part. Plenty of manufacturers now make large caliber bullets in copper, and the ballistics are good—hunters report they fire accurately and fast and mushroom consistently upon impact, with less fragmenting. (There is plenty of disagreement and chatter about the relative ballistics online, given that lead and non-lead behave differently.) For people stocking up on ammo to hunt large game, like pigs or deer, there is a competitive marketplace and multiple options. But there is limited availability for lower-caliber cartridges, specifically .17 and .22 long rifles. These rounds generally are rimfire, rather than centerfire, referring to the location of the primer in the cartridge. Hunters use rimfire for smaller animals like ground squirrels. Unlike large game, which might take just a few bullets, controlling many smaller animals can require a lot more shots. It’s also much harder to find in the marketplace. VWS created a webpage dedicated to non-lead rimfire, rimfireroundup. com, with a chart listing availability at stores from Big 5 in Coalinga to Turner’s in Salinas to Uncle Ed’s Outfitters in Atascadero, and beyond. As of this writing, no store out of 22 listed has .22LR ammo in stock. The .22 is the most commonly used rifle in America. “Right now it’s not available at any of the stores we’re monitoring,” Sorenson says. “We think that’s a big problem.” In 2024, the two major manufacturers of non-lead .22 LR bullets—CCI and Norma—discontinued those calibers. (Neither company responded to the Weekly’s questions.) On its website, Norma promotes its non-lead options such as zinc, and specific ammunition for taking down unauthorized drones. The Swedish company calls itself “the microbrewery of the ammunition industry.” There are currently just three nonlead products available in .17 from Hornady, Winchester and CCI. The only .22 option by Cutting Edge Bullets is not available, leaving VWS as one of the only sources of non-lead .22 rounds that exists, as they distribute from a precious stockpile. Some local hunters, like Cody West, who lives in the foothills above Gonzales, say there is enough non-lead ammo to go around. He relied on VWS’ free distribution, and says it’s enough for his needs (he’s using .17 HMR, not the hard-to-get .22) and that the copper bullets work great as far as speed and accuracy. He shoots roughly 10 ground squirrels each spring. “It seems like when I put that pressure on them, they move out,” he says. Otherwise, he says, “They’re almost impossible to keep out of our garden and our orchard. They eat the fruit, they chew the bark—they cause a lot of damage.” He knows there are some arguments about copper or steel bullets Mike Stake opens the ammunition closet at Ventana Wildlife Society’s Monterey office. Due to limited availability of rimfire, the nonprofit’s free ammunition program prioritizes regions where condors are known to forage. 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Free-flying population size in California Time (years) 0 5 10 15 20 No lead mortality Status quo Mortality 3000 ng/mL Mortality 1000 ng/mL CONDOR POPULATION This chart is adapted from a figure that appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Lead poisoning and the deceptive recovery of the critically endangered California condor,” at doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203141109 (2012). This chart shows the projected condor population over 20 years, starting with 85 birds, under different scenarios. The green line (second from top) is the status quo; the bottom lines show increased mortality due to lead poisoning if current non-lead interventions were to end; and the top line (in pink) shows a scenario in which lead poisoning is eliminated. “Without continued management to prevent lead-related deaths, the wild condor population is predicted to again face the substantial threat of extinction in the coming decades,” the study found. DANIEL DREIFUSS
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