The Loon Preservation Committee (LPC) and New Hampshire Lakes Association (New Hampshire LAKES) held a press conference on Tuesday to call for House passage of Senate Bill 89 which would protect loons from toxic lead fishing sinkers and jigs (hooks with a lead weight molded onto them). The bill recently passed the Senate by a unanimous vote, and it will soon be considered by the House Fish and Game and Marine Resources Committee. The groups were joined at the Legislative Office Building by the bill’s prime sponsor, Senator Jeanie Forrester (R-Meredith), and several cosponsors of the bill from the House and Senate.

Survival of adult loons is the most important factor in ensuring the continued viability of New Hampshire’s small loon population. Unfortunately, between 1989 and 2011, at least 124 adult New Hampshire loons—a threatened species—have died from lead poisoning after ingesting lead fishing sinkers and jigs. The loss of these adults has had a significant negative impact upon our state’s loons.

Harry Vogel, LPC’s Executive Director, explained that loons do not breed until their sixth or seventh year of life on average, and a loon pair produces an average of one surviving chick every two years in New Hampshire. Vogel said, “In any population of animals with those life history characteristics, the key to maintaining a viable population is to keep adults alive so that they have many opportunities to reproduce over their lifetimes.”

After a record number of 11 loons died in 2010 after ingesting lead tackle, LPC and partners began a comprehensive study of loon mortality in New Hampshire. The study by LPC, Tiffany Grade (a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Dr. Mark Pokras of Tufts University found that lead fishing sinkers and jigs caused nearly half (49%) of the adult loon mortality between 1989 and 2011.