Is anybody bothered

[al4x]

Its interesting the wildfowl issue has just gone away and ducks and swans aren't apparently dieing any more bearing in mine in England the law was written by an idiot. Assuming that ponds and wetlands etc are so vulnerable why allow any lead to be used over them surely it defeats the object if you can shoot other game and vermin with lead arround them. we've ponds and shoot a lot of duck from them and also have neighbouring pheasant drives overlapping so there is no shortage of lead going into the water but funnily enough I've never heard of a poisoned duck.

 

This issue may be massively over publicised Christopher but the simple facts are after you had riddden over everyone else with regard to game farming a lot of people were swayed by your own staff commenting on its toxicity and your scientific advisors saying the same and that lead should be phased out and alternatives recomended. Now we have a sensible response based on common sense and facts that no shooter has been poisoned and even the Indiginous Eskimos have blood lead levels well within safe limits despite eating shot game most of the time. Hopefully it will be treated in a sensible light and we can go on with the status quo into the future

[David BASC]

Hi Al4x...

 

You say (BASC has) ridden over everyone else with regard to game farming ? What on earth are you talking about? BASC took a policy position on small barren cages for rearing pheasants and partridges in 2005. Have you read the FAWC report for example which I think you will find formed the basis for much of Defra's draft code.

 

Defra ran a consultation- BASC offered its response as did the GFA, NGO et al. Defra looked at the responses, , the FAWC report and other info and made their decision...so how has BASC 'ridden over everyone' Anyway, lets please keep this thread to lead.

The lead ammunition group will most certainly look at all the evidence that it can, including i suspect the EFSA report on lead in food.

 

The point is that the group is not out to ban lead!! I think all will become more clear when the LAG web site launches.

 

i agree, common sense MUST prevail.

 

Best wishes

 

David

[al4x]

That EFSA report looks interesting I may need a little bit of help here but I think I've ripped out the correct part that gives the limits that they found normal people seem to be ingesting from normal food. Seems to me it would be nice to know what the average person is consuming as the levels are small and come from a wide range of sources.

 

"Estimates of dietary exposure to lead based on lower bound assumptions and upper bound assumptions for the level of reporting for average adult consumers in Europe are lower than the BMDL intake value for effects on SBP (1.50 µg/kg b.w. per day), but vary from above to below the BMDL intake value for effects on the prevalence of CKD (0.63 µg/kg b.w. per day). The respective MOEs range from 1.2 to 4.2 and from 0.51 to 1.81, respectively. Hence, if exposure were closer to the upper bound estimates, the possibility of an effect on some consumers cannot be excluded."

[Chard]

So the realy can be no excuse using lead on clays , switch to steel and bring the traps a bit closer.

 

 

Poke it. I don't want to shoot every target off the end of my ******* barrel, thank you very much.

 

Christ, with people like you around, clay shooting doesn't need enemies

[al4x]

can't you just use the laser clay shooting guns

 

on a serious note I never realised actually we cannot cut lead intake much further as a bulk of it comes from cereal crops so even the veggies are knackered so to speak. Our legacy of Industry and Lead in petrol it would seem has polluted all agricultural land and though our blood levels are now a fraction what they were 10 years ago it seems as though Europe is trying to go further. One thing is for sure it appears even the most prolific game eaters have levels less than half the average level when there was lead in petrol. Maybe this will all be resolved sensibly with common sense applied or really we may be at a loss for what to eat

[Chard]

can't you just use the laser clay shooting guns

 

Yes, we'll all stand in a line, and when the trapper throws an organic potato across the front of us, we'll all go through the motions and shout "bang".

 

The most realistic wins the point.

 

I can't ******* wait.

[David BASC]

A very valid point, thats why the EFSA stuff was so interesting, and possibly have influence on the findings of the group...but so may this :

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%...al.pone.0010315

 

 

David

[David BASC]

Sorry Chard but you can't shout 'bang' it will cause too much noise and you will have a noise abatement notice clapped on you.

 

David

[al4x]

the problem as I see it is if you take a reading based on the amount of lead present in one lump/ fragment etc that has no basis on what actually gets absorbed by your body as the majority will pass straight through, as prooved by an elderly shooter I used to know who lived on game. His family couldn't believe the collection of shot in the pan so to speak

 

Even with the fragment based evidence in that paper the fact people eating lots of game haven't got massive lead concentrations present is that the fragments are still not readily absorbed. Even the first paper claimed the absorption was reduced if the lead was present in food, the correlation between high levels from shot game resulting from fragments just doesn't seem to correlate to very high absorption compared to when the host meat presumably has it spread throughout the tissue from its own intake from grass and soil etc. Be an interesting bit of research for someone as my reckoning is you could eat a low level intake from normal food containing X concentration of lead and that would increase your blood levels by a certain amount and that would bear no similarity to the increase in blood levels from game meat with levels X amount higher simply because the source of the lead is far more concentrated.

[Chard]

Sorry Chard but you can't shout 'bang' it will cause too much noise and you will have a noise abatement notice clapped on you.

 

David

 

Hadn't thought of that.

 

OK. Each competitor can have one of those duck caller things clamped between their teeth.

Then they can all quack when the clay potato is launched.

That would add a touch of rural authenticity to the proceedings

[clutey]

The standard army issue round is lead with a copper jacket which leaves part of the lead bullet exposed. Therefore I presume any lead ban will of course apply to the millions of rounds fired by our military on the practice ranges. Live Firing/shooting ranges are not just enclosed areas with set firing points and defined target areas that most of us know and love. They can be quite large areas taking in miles of open space usually over some of the most spectacular country side, shooting over rivers, marshlands moors etc; Has this been taken into account in a lead ban?

[dazza]

Why don't you look for any scientific evidence in the UK where lead shot causes problems?

 

JRDS makes a good point about Kelbrook, all their filtered water for their house comes out of the lake which must have an awful lot of lead shot in it.

 

If you want to find out more I suggest you start looking yourself, you never know you might learn something.

 

 

Blaser I would have thought with you being anti bloodsports you would be concerned about the possibility of your lead causing damage to wildlife.

[wymberley]

A very valid point, thats why the EFSA stuff was so interesting, and possibly have influence on the findings of the group...but so may this :

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%...al.pone.0010315

 

 

David

Damn me, David. It's not the lead that did for me but that article. I was already dead before I'd finished reading it. Cause? Starvation.

Cheers

[Christopher Graffius]

Here's a report on the article from The New Scientist

 

The interesting point for me is that I don't know anyone in the UK who eats game to the extent described in the report. Pigeon eaters look pretty safe.

 

Christopher

 

 

Lead poisoning risk for frequent game eaters

28 April 2010

 

HOW much lead gets eaten along with wild-shot game? Enough to poison regular eaters of some wild birds, thanks to fragments of lead too small to be picked out during a meal.

 

Debbie Pain of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, and colleagues, bought wild-shot birds from supermarkets, game dealers and butchers across the UK. After X-raying them, they cooked them either in wine or cider or a pH-neutral preparation such as a cream sauce. As is traditional with game, only then did they pick out the larger, visible lead fragments.

 

Subsequent analysis of the deboned, pulverised meat revealed that just over three meals of woodcock in a week would take a 70-kilogram person over the lead-threshold set by United Nations bodies for most farmed animals. Red grouse, partridge and pheasant hit the limit with about 10 meals per week. Wood pigeon and mallard fans can rest easier, unless they eat 24 to 30 servings per week (PLoS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010315).

 

The X-rays suggest the blame lies with small unnoticed pieces of shot.

 

"People all over the world consume birds killed with lead shotgun pellets, so the work has wide implications," says Grainger Hunt of the Peregrine Fund in McArthur, California.

 

A recent report by the European Food Safety Authority found that harmful effects emerge well below the UN's limits on lead consumption.

[PaulABF]

The standard army issue round is lead with a copper jacket which leaves part of the lead bullet exposed. Therefore I presume any lead ban will of course apply to the millions of rounds fired by our military on the practice ranges. Live Firing/shooting ranges are not just enclosed areas with set firing points and defined target areas that most of us know and love. They can be quite large areas taking in miles of open space usually over some of the most spectacular country side, shooting over rivers, marshlands moors etc; Has this been taken into account in a lead ban?

 

We've also fired a few few down the Falls Road. Apart from the webbed feet of the locals there's been no lasting damage.

[al4x]

Here's a report on the article from The New Scientist

 

The interesting point for me is that I don't know anyone in the UK who eats game to the extent described in the report. Pigeon eaters look pretty safe.

 

Christopher

 

 

 

 

Subsequent analysis of the deboned, pulverised meat revealed that just over three meals of woodcock in a week would take a 70-kilogram person over the lead-threshold set by United Nations bodies for most farmed animals. Red grouse, partridge and pheasant hit the limit with about 10 meals per week. Wood pigeon and mallard fans can rest easier, unless they eat 24 to 30 servings per week (PLoS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010315).

 

 

a couple of things spring to mind, firstly if you can eat 3 meals a week before reaching the limit for normal farmed meat surely that is pretty impressive,

 

secondly Mallard shouldn't be included at all in a piece on Lead research, seems very flawed to me as there is no logical reason why pigeons should be that different to other game birds. Personally I'd love to see the duck figures and then rip the piece apart from there

Edited April 29, 2010 by al4x

[Christopher Graffius]

a couple of things spring to mind, firstly if you can eat 3 meals a week before reaching the limit for normal farmed meat surely that is pretty impressive,

 

secondly Mallard shouldn't be included at all in a piece on Lead research, seems very flawed to me as there is no logical reason why pigeons should be that different to other game birds. Personally I'd love to see the duck figures and then rip the piece apart from there

 

 

But there is evidence to suggest that mallard - contrary to the law - are still being shot with lead inland. Evidently the researchers managed to obtain mallard that had been shot with lead.

 

The variations could be accounted for by the small sample and the fact that every bird included will have shot in different places at different ranges, angles and shot penetration.

 

Christopher

[al4x]

it doesn't surprise me but if the sample is that small that single bird variations make that much difference its not the best bit of scientific research I've ever heard of

[mudpatten]

Is`nt it a good job then that BASC is actually on the committee which will review this "evidence" and show it for the nonesense that some of it is.

 

If some of the contributors on this forum had their way,BASC would be outside the debating chamber throwing stones at the windows.

[David BASC]

I suspect the Lead Ammunition Group is a long long way of from receiving or reviewing any evidence, they only met on Monday!

 

Wait until the LAG web site is up and running and we can all see exactly what was said and what was to be put into action from that first and then subsequent meetings.

 

I would have thought that the group would Quality Assure any ‘evidence’ that is to be presented to the group to make sure it is robust and relevant, and a small sample size of an illegally shot duck or two is hardly robust, nor is it representative of wildfowling in the UK or of shot duck entering the food chain!

 

I do hope none of the members of the LAG ‘break rank’ and start rumors running about this that and the other, or expressing ‘concerns’ about other members of the group. That will almost certainly be counter productive to the object of the group and would only be done to try and curry favor with a constituency I suspect – a rather puerile and short term view in my opinion if such was to happen.

 

Let’s hear it from the horses mouth, let’s hear it from the LAG!

 

David

Edited April 29, 2010 by David BASC

[clutey]

We've also fired a few few down the Falls Road. Apart from the webbed feet of the locals there's been no lasting damage.

 

 

Yes Paul there was a quite few rounds sent down the Falls Rd, as well as the Shankill. I'm glad for you that you found it amusing.

[Salopian]

I have no doubt that this is a backdoor attack on shooting sports.

Please read Robin Scott's Editorial inside the back page of Sporting Gun. Interestingly he reminded me of the role the RSPB played in the Wildfowling dabate and the implementation of NTS hosted by BASC.

Is this the second chapter?

 

Now let's get serious, should we not all be concentrating our energies into addressing the issues within the environment caused by oil and plastics (an oil based product) What harm are we causing the World with oil powered products? Plastics, Motor Vehicles, Industry.

Leave the leisure industry alone (shooting) and get your back garden tidied up.

A collegue of mine works 37 hours a week as a firing range operator where he cleans an indoor range every day of lead.

He receives regular blood tests and health surveillance and has never failed a test.

Other colleagues operate paint spraying equipment, everyone periodically fails the aspiration test and have to be found other work until they recover enough to meet the safe level criteria this normally takes 4-6 months recovery.

How many people will expose themselves to respiratory damage per week versus those of us who shoot lead?

Just a few things to ponder.

[mudpatten]

"What harm are we causing the world with.... plastic."

 

What, you mean like cartridge cases and wads?

[Salopian]

No, I mean oil and plastic products are far more environmentally damaging than all the Lead shooters in the World.

Have a look at oil pollution over the last few years, more birds have died through oil spillages than those that die from the ingestion of lead.

[BlaserF3]

More information http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/news/453102/RS...d039_study.html

 

How has a charity so much clout?