Molly Church

M.S., Environmental Toxicology

Molly ChurchIn 1982, the total population of California condors was just 22 birds. Four years later, as the wild population continued to plummet, biologists decided to capture the remaining wild condors and breed them in captivity. Now, 140 captive-bred California condors are flying free in California, Arizona, and Baja California.

But life in the wild is still full of hazards for this critically endangered species. Lead poisoning is one of the most serious and persistent threats to wild condors. At least 13 have died from lead poisoning, and dozens more have had to be captured and treated for it.

Conservationists have long believed that the problem results from the use of lead ammunition by hunters. Condors feed on carrion and can ingest fragments of lead bullets from animal carcasses and gut piles left behind by hunters.

Past efforts to ban lead ammunition in California have been stymied by opposition from hunting groups. But this year the situation is very different. As a direct result of a scientific study led by UCSC graduate student Molly Church, the California Department of Fish and Game recommended a ban on the use of lead bullets throughout the range of the California condor. Legislation to enact such a ban is now moving through the state legislature.

Church, who earned a master’s degree in environmental toxicology in 2004 and is now at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, was able to match the lead in blood samples from condors to the lead in ammunition obtained from a variety of sources throughout central California. She used a proven “fingerprinting” technique based on the unique isotope ratios found in different sources of lead.

Donald Smith, professor and chair of environmental toxicology, was Church’s adviser and a coauthor of the scientific paper reporting her findings. He has testified at several hearings in Sacramento before State Senate and Assembly committees considering the bill to ban lead ammunition.

“Had it not been for the outstanding science in Molly’s paper, the professional lobbyists for hunter-advocacy groups testifying in opposition to the bill would have gone unchallenged,” Smith says.