Boise State University will play host to a scientific conference this week addressing the potential risk of lead poisoning from high-velocity bullets in wildlife and venison for humans.

The four-day gathering will cover issues ranging from lead poisoning among subsistence hunting Inuits in Alaska and Russia, lead levels in ravens in southern Yellowstone National Park, lead found in swans in Western Washington, and the politics of nontoxic ammunition.

The issue has been heightened since North Dakota and Minnesota officials told food bank operators to clear their shelves of venison donated by hunters this year.

Researchers realized there might be a connection between lead poisoning, bullets, venison and humans after 1996, the year rare California condors were reintroduced in northern Arizona. As many as 60 now fly over the Grand Canyon and southern Utah, but researchers and the Arizona Game and Fish Department found the scavengers were ailing from lead poisoning after eating hunter-killed deer and leftover gut piles. In 2006, five condors died of lead poisoning and 90 percent of the rest had signs of exposure.

One North Dakota researcher used a CT scan to examine about 100 packets of venison from local food giveaway programs and found 60 percent had multiple lead fragments. While no cases of lead poisoning from venison had been reported, his research helped lead to the warning to food banks in North Dakota in March.

Days later, Minnesota followed suit after separate tests in that state.