Other states have joined North Dakota's warning that thousands of pounds of venison given to food pantries could be contaminated by lead from bullets. Hunting groups are calling it an overreaction.

"It's alarmist and not supported by any science," said Lawrence Keane, a vice president and lawyer for the Newton, Conn.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. "High quality protein is now taken out of the mouths of needy, hungry people."

North Dakota health officials on Wednesday told food pantries in the state to throw out donated venison, saying it may have lead fragments. Officials in Minnesota and Iowa followed with similar alerts, asking that venison in those states not be distributed.

Gov. John Hoeven said the alerts were issued as a precaution. He said the state has a "tremendous working relationship" with hunters, and the questions raised about ground venison are new.

"They're looking at it and operating out of safety," Hoeven said of health officials. "Along with the state Agriculture Department and the Game and Fish Department, they will be doing studies and evaluations over the course of the next year, so they can put guidelines out for the next hunting season."

Safari Club International's Sportsmen Against Hunger program donated 317,000 pounds of venison last year to the needy, said Doug Burdin, a lawyer for the Tucson, Ariz.-based group. The meat donated by hunters was enough for more than 1.2 million meals, he said.

SCI began the Sportsmen Against Hunger program 18 years ago.

"It's provided a lot of free meals to a lot of people," Burdin said. "Hunters are doing something they love and helping others at the same time. This is disheartening, and we certainly don't think this program should come to an end on the unscientific assessment that has occurred here."

Dr. William Cornatzer, a Bismarck physician and hunter, alerted health officials after he conducted his own tests on venison using a CT scanner and found lead in 60 percent of 100 samples. The North Dakota Health Department confirmed the results on at least five samples of venison destined for food pantries.

"This isn't just a food pantry problem. This is a nationwide problem," Cornatzer said Friday.

Hunters have alternatives to lead, he said.

"I'm a big hunter. I've already purchased four boxes of copper bullets for next year," Cornatzer said.

Cornatzer said he worried about the potential for lead fragments in venison after seeing a report by The Peregrine Fund of Boise, Idaho. He said the nonprofit group, of which he is a board member, studied the effects on birds that ingested bullet fragments left behind in deer carcasses.

"Condors are really acting as a sentinel for what could be happening in humans," said Rick Watson, a vice president of The Peregrine Fund.

"We do know what happens to condors, and there is enough concern to warrant a study that humans could be affected," he said.

Watson said The Peregrine Fund conducted tests over a dozen years on the effects of condors that ingested lead from deer carcasses. He said members of his group shot deer and studied how bullets fragmented beyond the initial wound.

"Lead bullets fragment into tiny, tiny pieces, some of which are visible and some are not," Watson said.

The group plans to release findings in May from a study on lead fragments in deer meat, he said.

Keane, of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said he did not know of any similar studies by ammunition or firearms makers.

Justin Moore, a spokesman for ammunition maker Nosler, Inc. of Bend, Ore., said his company began offering non-lead bullets last year, but not because of lead issues.

"Many companies have been doing it for quite a while," Moore said. "We saw potential in that market and developed a bullet."

Moore said his 60-year-old company had never researched microscopic bullet fragmentation.

The North Dakota Community Action Partnership distributed 17,000 pounds of venison from 381 donated deer after last year's hunting season, a number that has tripled since the program began in North Dakota in 2004, executive director Ann Pollert said. At least 4,000 pounds of venison were in food pantries in the state when the health department issued its warning, she said.

The state has about 45 food pantries, and surveys have shown a need for more than 70,000 pounds of venison annually, Poller said. She hopes people will donate other types of meat.