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Shooting ducks - legal clarification, please


spandit
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Neither have I found any suprising realy as my dogs bring back anything dead no matter how manky

Also I have struggled to find ingested shot in birds I have dressed but i have only been looking seriously for 5 years

Thanks for your reply

 

I don't find it suprising I'd actually be more surprised if someone said they had found birds in the said condition. Being the secretary of a fowling club I get to meet and speak with an awful lot of people who would likely find these birds going about their business, but to date and years of asking I'm yet to hear of anyone doing so. Maybe our collective eye sights aren't as good as the bods who supply the figures of the poisoned birds for the rspb and government bodies and any other bunch of do gooders that wish to jump on the wagon.

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You're right the alleged problem won't disappear without some multi million £ clean up operation, but in 42 years of fowling inland and tidal I've never found or had a dog find one of these thousands of wildfowl that have died from lead poisoning. Just out of curiosity has any other member on here found any ?.

 

Not me but I remember a tale about a "sporting agent" up here who was feeding a field and was shooting it heavily, the geese were picking up the shot as they grazed and many were found between there and the estuary in poor condition. Other than that, no.

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I did the same very unscientific and the opposite dug up the dabbling area and panned it like for gold found shot and all sorts of stuff including a Dutch medal the thing is birds are (apparently ) still ingesting lead shot we aren't adding to it with our use of non toxic shot so are the figures wrong or is it getting into the system another way

No solution just food for thought

Just out of sheer interest, since I'm Dutch and ex Army, what kind of medal is it?

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Not me but I remember a tale about a "sporting agent" up here who was feeding a field and was shooting it heavily, the geese were picking up the shot as they grazed and many were found between there and the estuary in poor condition. Other than that, no.

 

I can't see that being relevant as the thing we're after is the ingestion absorption of the lead which I'm led to believe happens over a long period of time. Possibly a case of our European cousins being a little over zealous with their three shots and pricking a few.

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A pair of ducks took off from a neighbours pond this morning and flew over my land, where I was sat with a loaded shotgun at the time. They weren't in range, I wasn't sure of the species but would I have been allowed to shoot them with lead shot or is that only over wetlands?

 

Very windy today, pigeons, when I saw them, were going at the speed of sound

Even if you had steel you shouldn't take the shot if you couldn't identify the species.

Edited by Davyo
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It is not surprising that few lead posioned duck are ever found. It takes up to 10 days tokill a mallard and for round half that period it will be unable to fly and vulnrable to being picked up by rats\foxes \ crows \ gulls ect. a Danish ecologist did an experiment where he scattered 100 dead duck around a non tidal marsh.Marked where every duck was dropped and returned a week later and could only find 3 dead birds. Scavangers had probably eaten the others. Lets face it millions of garden birds die every year , but how many do you find- very,very few.

 

When I used to do a lot of duck ringing every year we used to catch a dozen or more duck with the early stage of lead posioning and this was over gravel pits with no shooting in an area of pheasant shooting estates with very little duck shooting. Make no mistake lead posions ducks. Its true lead has been shot over marshes for long periods and will still be present , in declining amounts as the pellets sink into the mud , but if we had not stopped useing lead there would never be an end to the problem.

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Make no mistake lead posions ducks. Its true lead has been shot over marshes for long periods and will still be present , in declining amounts as the pellets sink into the mud , but if we had not stopped useing lead there would never be an end to the problem.

 

I have no argument for the above but do feel we've been spoon fed a load of exaggerated carp from the do gooders and everyone else that wants to see shooting decline. As in your earlier post how were they managing to find all these poisoned ducks we were informed about, they must be just luckier than the Danish chap :rolleyes: .

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97./. Of dead birds not found in a week did he record how many pairs of wings picked up or piles of feathers found any recordings of other human visitors there a few questions to answer before one mans figures should be accepted

A local could have picked them up and thought it was his birthday

Not looking to dispute his findings and your probably a lot more informed than I am I just see a few flaws in his test

Or a large number of predators on the marsh

Many thanks

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