Project delay... and some preliminary results!

Unfortunately, our data collection has been put on hold over the summer due to unforeseen shortages of blood lead testing equipment. Earlier in the summer, there was a recall on the blood lead testing kits because the tests were reading too low. This recall has lead to a nationwide shortage and we are unable to get more testing supplies right now. I'll update you when we are able to get more testing supplies, but data collection for this study will likely now go through next summer.

However, this pause has allowed us to catch up on some validation testing for the XRF analyzer and look at initial data.

So far, of the songbirds tested at WRC, 7% have blood lead values greater than 10ug/dL (our cutoff for chelation treatment). If we look at specific species, ~20% of blue jays and 36% of common grackles have blood lead greater than 10ug/dl. American robins only had ~5% with blood lead greater than 10ug/dl. Woodpeckers of various species were also more likely to be affected. We're very interested in getting more data so we can target our testing and treatment in the future.

We have collected half of our intended sample size, so lot's more info to come... once we have our lead testing kits again!