Radio 4 "Farming Today" 70 % of wild ducks still shot

[HW682]

Heard this the other morning. Thought you might find it interesting to hear shooting being discussed on mainstream radio...

 

 

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12/11/2010Listen:Listen now (15 minutes)

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Last broadcast on Friday, 05:45 on BBC Radio 4.

Synopsis

70 per cent of ducks bought in English butchers, game dealers and supermarkets have been shot with lead shot, despite that being banned 11 years ago. That's according to a new Defra funded study which has revealed that though the law was changed in 1999 to prevent other wetland birds swallowing the shot and getting lead poisoning, the majority of people are still using it to shoot ducks. But conservationists say lead poses a threat to both wildlife and human health.

 

(edit: Above text is cut and pasted from BBC website)

Edited November 17, 2010 by HW682

[Fatcatsplat]

Wildfowlers who shoot over wetlands will generally keep the birds for themselves and will (quite rightly) use non lead shot. Have been on a bundle of driven days where you shoot duck driven off their pond and over trees, ususally to makew the bag up - You're not actually shooting over wetlands, so you can use lead and the majority of these semi tame ducks will be sold on to the game dealer - Ergo, loads of ducks with lead shot

[HW682]

From BASC website.

"In England the lead shot regulations ban the use of lead shot over all foreshore, over specified SSSIs, and for the shooting of all ducks and geese, coot and moorhen, wherever they occur. Please contact the BASC head office for further details.

 

DEFRA is expected to undertake a full review of the Regulations, perhaps in 2010, and monitor compliance with them in the meantime."

[Ferret Master]

Wildfowlers who shoot over wetlands will generally keep the birds for themselves and will (quite rightly) use non lead shot. Have been on a bundle of driven days where you shoot duck driven off their pond and over trees, ususally to makew the bag up - You're not actually shooting over wetlands, so you can use lead and the majority of these semi tame ducks will be sold on to the game dealer - Ergo, loads of ducks with lead shot

Not legal though if you are in England or Wales on these days!

 

FM

[HDAV]

Synopsis

70 per cent of ducks bought in English butchers, game dealers and supermarkets have been shot with lead shot,

Not knocking the synopsis but i would dearly love to see the raw data for this: I.e. how many ducks were sampled, the total number of ducks sold, and the methodology used...

[guest1957]

The majority of ducks in game dealers will come from driven days, if these are shot in drives where pheasant and partridge are also on the list, i'm inclined to think that there are some who might not be so careful with their cartridge choice as the law requires them to be... Personally, i'd prefer to see a similar law to Scotland, but that won't happen soon.

[seeker]

"happy reading"

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=16075&FromSearch=Y&Publisher=1&SearchText=wc0730&SortString=ProjectCode&SortOrder=Asc&Paging=10

Something similar was presented at an EU conference in Spain at the begunning of the year - a joint study by a Spanish Uni and several other bodies .. same conclusions.

[poontang]

It seems from reading the report that most lead shot ducks come from game shoots. Hardly surprising really.

 

http://www.wwt.org.uk/files/HQ-PR/Lead/LeadShotRegulationsComplianceReport.pdf

[al4x]

Wildfowlers who shoot over wetlands will generally keep the birds for themselves and will (quite rightly) use non lead shot. Have been on a bundle of driven days where you shoot duck driven off their pond and over trees, ususally to makew the bag up - You're not actually shooting over wetlands, so you can use lead and the majority of these semi tame ducks will be sold on to the game dealer - Ergo, loads of ducks with lead shot

 

 

totally incorrect you can't use lead full stop on ducks in England. The problem is larger commercial shoots where people do ignore the law simply as it isn't enforced. It wouldn't be hard to check ducks coming into game dealers as they will be identifiable as to which shoot they came from and follow it up. Sadly its doing none of us any good, however the bigger issue to my mind is where are all the sick wildfowl as they seem to have gone away since the ban came in.

[henry d]

.........Have been on a bundle of driven days where you shoot duck driven off their pond and over trees, ususally to makew the bag up - You're not actually shooting over wetlands, so you can use lead........

 

As FM says, totally illegal in England and Wales !!!!

[artschool]

Not knocking the synopsis but i would dearly love to see the raw data for this: I.e. how many ducks were sampled, the total number of ducks sold, and the methodology used...

 

i would like to know the methodology as well.

 

how much lead from someones hands or other sources could be skewing the results?

[henry d]

It`s 7-45 in to the programme

 

LINKY

[CharlieT]

These facts are also reported in last weeks Shooting Times.

[njc110381]

It's a stupid law really isn't it?! Lead shot should be banned over water, quite simple. Shooting a Duck over a field with a game load isn't hurting anything (well apart from the Duck I suppose!).

 

As it is though we shouldn't shoot Ducks with lead, it doesn't do us any favours!

[al4x]

exactly, we have drives which are mixed pheasant and duck over lakes, so in theory you just use non toxic, but then the next drive is pheasants back towards the lake, perfectly legal to use lead yet most falls in the lakes. One of the issues is very few shooters have ever witnessed it being an issue. I've never seen an ill duck I though might have been poisoned by lead and that is 20 years of driving ducks on this one estate, when people can't see the reasoning for a law they tend to break it

[HDAV]

"happy reading"

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=16075&FromSearch=Y&Publisher=1&SearchText=wc0730&SortString=ProjectCode&SortOrder=Asc&Paging=10

Something similar was presented at an EU conference in Spain at the begunning of the year - a joint study by a Spanish Uni and several other bodies .. same conclusions.

From the Exectuive summary "A significantly higher proportion of Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) had been shot with lead than Wigeon (A. penelope) and Teal (A. crecca) (337/459, (73%) vs 2/20 (10%) and 5/13 (38%), respectively). This could reflect non-compliance mainly in inland game and/or duck shooting activities as coastal wildfowlers are known to supply game outlets only rarely (however the small samples sizes of Wigeon and Teal should be noted)."

 

How many ducks are sold in the UK annually?

 

It isnt helped by poor labelling of carts perhaps there should be a "Wildfowl suitable" Logo that can be applied to packaging so people know the carts they are buying are suitable or a "not suitable for Duck/wildfowl" logo on lead shot carts?

[anser2]

The survey suggests its mainly game shooters who are killing duck with lead, probably because they cant be bothered to carry lead and non toxic shells at the same time so does any realy think they will bother to change shells for a duck flying over water and then back again for duck flying over land. Of course they will not.

 

 

As for not finding posioned ducks al4x. try an experiment. Next time you are pigeon shooting keep back 20 birds and tuck them in the reeds around your lakes and mark the spot. Come back a week later and see how many dead birds you will find. It will very few if any. Sick birds just disapear when they die , mainly being cleared up by scavengers. After all every year millions of birds die , but how many do we find.