Rewulf

Which begs the question, why are they using a study from 1983, 16 years before the ban on lead shot over wetlands ? Your quoted 'evidence' is irrelevant.

Why are you posting this again ? Its old news, we know BASC dont like lead shot, YOU dont like lead shot, lead shot is going to be banned, end of. BASC and other shooting orgs have dragged shooting, ALL shooting into the abyss. FAC and SGC holders, will have to contemplate hard on whether to continue their sport. Doctor pro formas - No opposition from BASC, just bad advice. Lead ban- no real opposition from BASC. Licence charges doubled- No opposition from BASC. You talk about fights and battles, Ive yet to see one.

This. He worked for, and still works toward banning lead in shooting.

I thought we couldnt launch without American permission/codes ? Not saying they wouldnt give it, but I was always under the impression we didnt have total control over our nuclear deterrent ?

No worries, I know what you mean about the sick bucket

I dont really understand your reasoning behind that Gordon ? The 'wee chicks' thing is a classic Conor quote. I believe Conors heart is more inclined towards saving the tiny amount of birds that may or may not die from ingesting lead shot, using dubious science that makes assumptions from cherry picked data. He cites naturalists that are clearly anti shooting sports, I dont believe that is compatible with an organisation that promotes shooting sports ?

Well yes , because youve quoted the paper based on its research Why would you do that if you, as in BASC, didnt agree with the pseudo science attached to it ? And there you go, BASC policy based on 'science' The science propagated by Pain et al, the RSPB and many other anti shooting entities, can you not see the problem here ? Your 'voluntary transition' may soon become an outright ban, and if YOU are leading the fight against this, its a certainty, because your heart tells you that lead should be banned completely to save the wee chicks. This makes you, and BASC for that matter, totally unsuitable to represent people who shoot in the UK, because you are in bed with those that would have it totally banned.

Unlike you Conor , I read the paper, and checked the reference material they used. D. Stroud, D.J. Pain & R.E. Green / Conservation Evidence Journal (2021) 18, 18-24 ISSN 1758-2067 21 Prosecutions We requested the Investigations Department of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to provide us with all records for 1999-2020 of wildlife crimes involving birds in the UK for which prosecutions were brought under the Lead Shot Regulations and the number of those in which a conviction was obtained from their Species Protection Database. CONSEQUENCES Number of ducks shot in the UK 1999 – 2020 Aebischer (2019, Table 2) gives estimated numbers shot in the UK of the nine species of ducks for 2004, 2012 and 2016. The annual totals across all species in each of these three years were 966,080, 1,001,880 and 1,136,200 ducks shot respectively. Most of these (84%) were mallards. Aebischer (2019) provided 95% confidence intervals for the species-specific estimates for each of the three years, which indicated that the estimates for the most frequently shot species, and hence the total across all species, were reasonably precise. Although the three annual grand totals increase over time, the confidence intervals for the estimates of change in the UK bag of individual species over the period covered by the PACEC data, as shown in Aebischer (2019, Table 1), do not indicate any statistically significant increases. We therefore assumed that the UK bag remained constant throughout the period 1999 - 2020 at the mean of the values for 2004, 2012 and 2016 derived from Aebischer (2019) (1,034,720 ducks per year). Proportion of the UK duck bag shot in England For each method, estimated proportions of duck shooting in England were higher for 2012 than 2004, and when gun-days were used as the measure of shooting effort, rather than the number of providers (Table 1). The assumptions made about the proportion of lowland driven shoots that released birds made little difference to the proportions calculated for 2012. Given that we have no strong reasons to accept any one of these methods or sets of assumptions over the others, we calculated a weighted mean of the mean of all values for each year with the number of PACEC survey respondents in 2004 (n = 1094) and 2012 (n = 3843) as the weights. This gave a weighted mean proportion of duck shooting located in England of 0.799, with an overall range of values of 0.672 – 0.852 (Table 1). Proportion of ducks shot in breach of the 1999 Regulations in England Surveys of the proportions of shot ducks purchased in England in 2001, 2008, 2009 and 2013 that were killed illegally using lead shotgun ammunition have published (Cromie et al. 2015). Sampled ducks were believed to have been shot in England, as determined at time of purchase. Embedded shot were extracted and their metal type determined by forensic examination (see Cromie et al. (2015) and references therein). The proportions of ducks killed illegally using lead shotgun pellets in breach of the Lead Shot Regulations was high and showed some indication of an increase over time (68%, 70%, 70%, 77% respectively). However, variation among years in the proportion of illegally- shot ducks was not statistically significant (χ2(3) = 2.49, p = 0.476). A logistic regression model fitted to the data, with illegally-shot or not as the binary response variable and year as a continuous independent covariate, indicated a non-significant tendency for the proportion to increase over time (likelihood-ratio test; χ2(1) = Go to citations on the paper , lots for you to read there about how they gathered evidence....

Why do you keep repeating this question ? It's irrelevant, lead shot over wetlands is banned, and has been for 26 years ! It's never going to be lifted, just like the 'voluntary ' lead shot and bullets for live quarry ban that is pending, is never going to be lifted. Conor, it's very clear that you are anti lead, the poor wee chick's thing confirmed this, and your constant diatribe, quoting people like Pain ad nauseum, sets you firmly in the anti lead, and anti shooting camp. Your bias is clear, so why are you debating this topic like you are fighting for us ? We are not stupid.

Illuminating

They are basing the numbers on around 1 million ducks per year being shot over the last 22 years = 22 million After this they have done a study on selected birds and game dealers over a couple of those years, from this they have garnered a figure of 70 % of them were shot with lead, extrapolated that to EVERY single one of those birds, 70 % of them were shot with lead = 13 million. This is their science. Now I dont shoot wildfowl, or any other game bird for that matter, but I find it a little hard to believe that ergo, 70% of wildfowlers, who take their birds to game dealers, are not using lead free shot. And dont seemed too fussed about the illegality of it. Also the ONE conviction in 20 odd years, kind of puts that into perspective, especially considering that the person involved was not arrested for using lead, he was shooting swans. The lead aspect was a secondary charge. Like I said, the science behind all these wild 'estimates' is nonsense.

Its from this paper, the one you provided, have YOU read it ?

A quick browse revealed this. Elevated levels of lead (i.e., > 20.0 µg/dL) were found in the blood of 34% (n = 285) of waterbirds tested at four sites in Britain during the 2010/2011 winter, and accounted for the deaths of at least 10.6% (n = 2,365) of waterbirds recovered across Britain between 1971 and 2010 and 8.1% (n = 1,051) between 2000 and 2010, with lead gunshot being the most likely source of poisoning. Why are they using data from up to 28 years BEFORE the lead ban came in ? Surely those figures arent relevant ? Also the sample sizes are far too small, the site spread too small, and assumptions very ambiguous on cause of death. Again, 13 million birds shot with lead AFTER the ban ? I will continue reading, but so far, my 'Figures plucked out the air' seems pretty accurate, and the agenda is clear to see. BASC is basing policy on nonsense.

First question I would be asking, is how on earth theyve managed to 'estimate' that ? My estimate, is that theyve just plucked a number out the air We conclude ? Wheres the evidence with only one conviction ? What was that thing BASC used ? No evidence, no change.... So something clearly changed, but NO EVIDENCE.