very few duck in New Zealand

[gunsmoke]

Nail Hayes letter to the Wairarapa Times-Age [WTA] newspapers in New Zealand is sober reading for all wildfowler in the UK.

 

In the WTA of March this year they reported a “dramatic drop in the number of ducks that can be hunted during the forthcoming season” Neil says it “makes depressing reading!”

 

Neil goes on to explain that “the lack of habitat and the impact of predators are certainly not the main reasons why their main game bird, the mallard, has almost disappeared from Wairarapa.”

 

He says that “thousands of acres of wetlands have been created and protected over the past 20 years and thanks to the Greater Wellington Regional Council, vast number of birds predators have been eliminated at well over a dozen key sites in Wairarapa.”

 

“For example, 30ha of Taumata Lagoon over 4500 predators have been eliminated in 20 years, feral cats, ferrets, stoats, weasels, rats and hedgehogs – but from 6000 mallards flocking at the Lagoon each February from 1990 to 2007 and we now see only 100 to 150 arriving!”

 

This is because in 2006 the use of lead shot was banned in 12 gauge shotguns and it is now known that steel shot, an inexpensive alternative, has increased the crippling factor from 6 per cent with lead shot to over 50 per cent. Which means a shooter who has retrieved a Limit Bag with 50 per cent of the birds shot not recovered?

 

The ban on lead shot was introduced because it was believed that ingested lead shot kills ducks but this is now known to be simply not true!”

 

The question I have is: are we going to see a reduction in the number of wildfowl here in the UK and would this also be linked to the use of steel shot?

[kent]

No certainly not. Wounding rate of 50% of bag perhaps the Kiwi hunter could do with looking at the range he shoots at if this is true. This seems like pro lead propaganda to me, its been Illegal to use lead for many years here in England and wales on all wildfowl. The fact a few fools choose to put all further lead use at risk by using it when not permitted does not mean the majority do.

[Salopian]

Should this thread not be on the Wildfowling page? Or even both?

[poontang]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-times-age/rural/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503409&objectid=11215846

[anser2]

Steel shot has now been introduced in most European countries and has been used for some time in America and yet we have seen no sign of any overall long term decline in our ducks though some species have declined from short stopping further north and others such as gadwall showing big increases. If your NZ shooters are having trouble crippling ducks I sugest thats because they do know how to shoot with steel. Its nothing like lead , you need big shot sizes ,fast loads and you must select the correct choke for the shot size to get the best out of steel. I now use steel not only just for duck , but also for game and pigeons. Given the choice " would I go back to lead ". The answer is no , steel has become my prefered load and I now shoot a lot better with it than lead.

[motty]

Nail Hayes letter to the Wairarapa Times-Age [WTA] newspapers in New Zealand is sober reading for all wildfowler in the UK.

 

In the WTA of March this year they reported a “dramatic drop in the number of ducks that can be hunted during the forthcoming season” Neil says it “makes depressing reading!”

 

Neil goes on to explain that “the lack of habitat and the impact of predators are certainly not the main reasons why their main game bird, the mallard, has almost disappeared from Wairarapa.”

 

He says that “thousands of acres of wetlands have been created and protected over the past 20 years and thanks to the Greater Wellington Regional Council, vast number of birds predators have been eliminated at well over a dozen key sites in Wairarapa.”

 

“For example, 30ha of Taumata Lagoon over 4500 predators have been eliminated in 20 years, feral cats, ferrets, stoats, weasels, rats and hedgehogs – but from 6000 mallards flocking at the Lagoon each February from 1990 to 2007 and we now see only 100 to 150 arriving!”

 

This is because in 2006 the use of lead shot was banned in 12 gauge shotguns and it is now known that steel shot, an inexpensive alternative, has increased the crippling factor from 6 per cent with lead shot to over 50 per cent. Which means a shooter who has retrieved a Limit Bag with 50 per cent of the birds shot not recovered?

 

The ban on lead shot was introduced because it was believed that ingested lead shot kills ducks but this is now known to be simply not true!”

 

The question I have is: are we going to see a reduction in the number of wildfowl here in the UK and would this also be linked to the use of steel shot?

This makes no sense. How could steel shot be linked to a reduction in duck numbers anywhere? This is illogical.

[HDAV]

This makes no sense. How could steel shot be linked to a reduction in duck numbers anywhere? This is illogical.

I agree unless the lower cost of steel means that there has been a huge increase in the number of shooters?

[poontang]

 

 

 

 

 

The ban on lead shot was introduced because it was believed that ingested lead shot kills ducks but this is now known to be simply not true!”

 

 

 

Ingested lead shot DOES kill wildfowl, and any other bird ingesting it. That's fact.

 

Whether it kills as many as some people seem to think is open to debate.

[gunsmoke]

This text was emailed to me today after a phone call, under instruction that the writer should remain ‘anonymous’.

At least 20 years ago when this lead shot nonsense began to surface, I personally fed some surplus mallard poults (9, from memory) in an aviary to test for myself – they were about half grown at that time. I gave them water, grit and dry wheat ad lib in separate trays about three inches deep.

I began by adding 20 BB pellets to the wheat to see if they would eat them. They didn’t. Each time the tray emptied, I was left with the 20 BB pellets.
I then continued that, but added 20 BB to the grit tray as well. The grit continued to go down and the BB remained untouched. I dropped another 20 in the water dish, which also remained untouched.

Finally I fed them the whole lot in one tray – I tipped the grit into the water bath and poured the wheat into that for a week. It got extremely messy of course, but at the end of a week I did the old panhandler routine and washed out the silt, and the 60 BB pellets we still there mixed with the remaining grit. That’s not science, of course – I merely did what I, being of an enquiring mind, thought was a reasonable experiment to see what would happen, rather than trying to prove something by testing. I had kept poultry and wildfowl for many years before that, and I was aware of their sensory abilities in terms of deciding what was edible and what was not in general terms.

I freely admit that I did not test all of the various shot sizes, I did not starve the birds in a sterile container to see if they would eat the BB out of desperation, or do any of the other things that someone could have thought up if they had been desperate to get the ducks to eat the shot. Having said that, I was and remain convinced that birds will not willingly eat lead shot under normal circumstances.

Interestingly, I much later read a scientific article (I think by the GWCT, although it would still have been the GCT in those days) about what birds do with the grit in their gizzards – I think it was in connection with grouse study in the early days of medicated grit - and I remember specifically that the birds consciously select sharp grit to eat, and that when the formerly sharp grit becomes smooth and rounded with the grinding process in the gizzard, it somehow is distinguished from the sharp grit and allowed to pass into and out through the bird’s digestive tract as it is no longer useful.

Again, I’m no scientist, but is seems to me that if there is some kind of ‘magic’ mechanism whereby small round stones are deliberately released from the gizzard and not retained like the remaining sharp grit, small round lead balls might suffer the same fate?

On that basis, if we had a mentally deficient duck that didn’t know what it was supposed to eat, with no sense of taste or feeling in its bill and a malfunctioning gizzard, in a location full of lead shot, it might well die of lead poisoning. Just as well that doesn’t happen often, isn’t it!

Birds have an extremely sensitive beak and highly developed taste organs – they are able to detect textures and tastes and can easily tell the difference between seeds of water plants and lead pellets or small stones.

Anonymous for now

[henry d]

Feed adult mallard, not poults, No. 5`s and see them die. There was a big die off of Pinks and greylags near Dundee a long time ago due to an unscrupulous "guide" spinning a field and allowing heavy bags to be shot with intervals to build numbers up. The geese fed heavily during the quiet times and picked the loose lead up and they died off, some on the Tay and others nearby, I believe that there were some geese tested and they did die of lead poisoning.

[strangford wildfowler]

Sure they where shooting upside down, thats why the cripple rate is so high.

[scotslad]

Duck hunting in NZis very different to how u do it here, not much in the way of coastal wildfowling mainly done inland over ponds and often involves quite a lot of drink, quite scary really. They tend to just sit out on ponds throu the day possibly with some deeks out but don't (as far as i know, well never heard my mates on about evening flighting) flight in the evening the way we do here

 

I seriously doubt there drop in numbers is down to laed/steel shot (think u can still use lead in a 16g or smaller) and just some wild assumptions. Is he really suggesting the 'crippling factor' of lead is 6% yet steel is 50% does he honestly think they are going from a 94% kill rate to a 2-1 ratio.

Even if that was true it would mean them shooting at every individual duck, i doubt all 6000 duck have flown over guns and been shot/pricked hard enough too kill them afterwards.

 

There has been numerous studies which have proved it can happen in some circumstances, but i also find it hard to believe that 1 goose guide could drastically reduce numbers of geese in 1 area throu lead poisoning.Have u any evidnce for this? Unless they were shooting massive ammounts of lead i seriously doubt u could even find any on the ground (even on driven shoots where firing large ammounts of lead very little will be found on ground)

There have been some wildfowl that actively feed on some seeds that can be shot sized so can actively ingest pellets that way. I also understood death was sometimes due to starvation with gizzard being cramped with the shot and it not eing as effecient as normal grit. Possiby when grit is more it will decrease in size so can be passed out of the gizzard, which will not happen with pellets, but this could still happen with steel.

 

Like some others have said if u shoot a lot of steel and esp if u homeload it u will probably shoot better with it oer lead, few of my mates far prefer steel shot now

[Salopian]

Personally, I think this whole non-toxic shot is an ill thought through subject and based on poor and flawed science.

We have a situation where Steel is banned or undesirable in Scandinavian Forestry, Bismuth is very fragile, and we have enough problems with fracking already, Tungsten and all variations have now been found to be the cause of cancer. Lead is THE only proven safe alternative that is acceptable as an efficient ammunition.

On top of this we have four countries in the UK and two of each have different rules.Surely if LEAD is as harmful as some of you would have us believe, more harm is done by it in Scotland and Ireland by depositing greater quantities overland than the English and Welsh do scattering it on the foreshore?

The cartridge industry have had more than twenty years to come up with a viable , economic alternative which is what BASC accepted the lead shot restrictions with when this debate first started and yet there really is no suitable alternative in sight.

[motty]

Personally, I think this whole non-toxic shot is an ill thought through subject and based on poor and flawed science.

We have a situation where Steel is banned or undesirable in Scandinavian Forestry, Bismuth is very fragile, and we have enough problems with fracking already, Tungsten and all variations have now been found to be the cause of cancer. Lead is THE only proven safe alternative that is acceptable as an efficient ammunition.

On top of this we have four countries in the UK and two of each have different rules.Surely if LEAD is as harmful as some of you would have us believe, more harm is done by it in Scotland and Ireland by depositing greater quantities overland than the English and Welsh do scattering it on the foreshore?

The cartridge industry have had more than twenty years to come up with a viable , economic alternative which is what BASC accepted the lead shot restrictions with when this debate first started and yet there really is no suitable alternative in sight.

In what way does this affect us in England?

[aris]

I agree unless the lower cost of steel means that there has been a huge increase in the number of shooters?

 

Except steel shot shells aren't much cheaper (at least in the UK).

[Salopian]

Motty,

Please don't shadow box! If ANY alternative has side issues they should be evaluated. Scandinavia have not just will nilly banned Steel shot . They have banned it because of the damage to their forestry industry, which in turn will raise the price of timber and cost us all. We have a timber industry also, but more importantly we have English SxS that cannot use Steel. I am not against Steel per se . I am against banning something that is more efficient.

[mudpatten]

Ah! It`s always good to see the return of Gunsmoke.

 

Mate, what you have posted is simply not true. and in any event you`re about two weeks too early. It is`nt anywhere near April the 1st!

[gunsmoke]

Personally, I think this whole non-toxic shot is an ill thought through subject and based on poor and flawed science.

We have a situation where Steel is banned or undesirable in Scandinavian Forestry, Bismuth is very fragile, and we have enough problems with fracking already, Tungsten and all variations have now been found to be the cause of cancer. Lead is THE only proven safe alternative that is acceptable as an efficient ammunition.

On top of this we have four countries in the UK and two of each have different rules.Surely if LEAD is as harmful as some of you would have us believe, more harm is done by it in Scotland and Ireland by depositing greater quantities overland than the English and Welsh do scattering it on the foreshore?

The cartridge industry have had more than twenty years to come up with a viable , economic alternative which is what BASC accepted the lead shot restrictions with when this debate first started and yet there really is no suitable alternative in sight.

 

Tungston has been banned in Denmark.

 

To bring in the lead restrictions the government had to consult with all side, which they did, BASC brought in a voluntary ban in wildfowling that lead to the Statutory Instrument being signed by the Minister at the time. I was told be a Defra Manager that if BASC had said NO! at the time the government would have had to bring in the lead ban by an act of parliament, I believe that we would not have a lead ban for wildfowling now if that was done because there is not the proof to ban lead shot.

 

On the accepted alternative, the BASC have actively been promoting steel shot with misleading information. They tell us steel is as good as lead, using scientific papers written by the anti lead side. Like the misleading information we get for AGW [global warming] the same thing has been going on with lead shot v steel shot. scientific papers made up to fit the outcome they want. The lead shot and steel shot papers are very much like reading the AGW scientific papers and when you go thought the paper trail, both sides AGW and Lead shot science all end up at the door of the UN and world governance with Agenda 21.

 

They came up with paper that shown steel shot being the same as lead. i do not understand now they managed that? In my tests steel shot was so poor I rejected it as be of very little use. The New Zealand article points to there being a higher wounding rate using steel shot. If steel is a poor as in my tests I can understand that point of view.

 

They have already banned wildfowling in parts of Australia over the wounding rate of shooters. How long best we see it here? With the poorer steel shot being used for wildfowling the wounding rate will go up and they the anti will use this against us. BASC are in no place to protect you as they have been promoting steel shot from the start.

 

My view is that on animal welfare ground the lead shot restrictions should be removed ASAP.

 

 

 

[mudpatten]

What you have quoted above is simply not true.

 

What I can tell you, and this is factual, is that my wildfowling club has ben carrying out field trials of a variety of non toxic shot types over a 20 year period.

 

Our most recent statistics show that modern steel cartridges are just as effective as lead and that crippling losses are exactly the same as with lead. I`ll just say that again - the crippling losses with modern steel ammunition are the same as with lead.

 

In the interests of preserving the use of lead for non wildfowl quarry I had hoped to keep this fact under wraps lest the anti lead lobby get hold of the stats.

 

I am compelled to place this in the public domain to counter your fantasy and ignorance based claims regarding steel shot and the part that you imagine BASC has played in it`s advance.

 

So, factual, UK based statistical evidence about the effectiveness of steel shot has been forced out into the open through the lunatic meanderings of a man whose original aim was to preserve lead. We really don`t need the help of people with tactical and strategic abilities like these.

 

Gunsmoke - for the sake of the future use of lead shot - please, please STOP TALKING! You are just excavating a huge hole into which the interested parties will throw lead, helped by your misguided efforts!!

[wymberley]

What you have quoted above is simply not true.

 

What I can tell you, and this is factual, is that my wildfowling club has ben carrying out field trials of a variety of non toxic shot types over a 20 year period.

 

Our most recent statistics show that modern steel cartridges are just as effective as lead and that crippling losses are exactly the same as with lead. I`ll just say that again - the crippling losses with modern steel ammunition are the same as with lead.

 

In the interests of preserving the use of lead for non wildfowl quarry I had hoped to keep this fact under wraps lest the anti lead lobby get hold of the stats.

 

I am compelled to place this in the public domain to counter your fantasy and ignorance based claims regarding steel shot and the part that you imagine BASC has played in it`s advance.

 

So, factual, UK based statistical evidence about the effectiveness of steel shot has been forced out into the open through the lunatic meanderings of a man whose original aim was to preserve lead. We really don`t need the help of people with tactical and strategic abilities like these.

 

Gunsmoke - for the sake of the future use of lead shot - please, please STOP TALKING! You are just excavating a huge hole into which the interested parties will throw lead, helped by your misguided efforts!!

Isn't that a somewhat selfish point of view? As lead is supposedly toxic and your club has discovered that steel performs as well as lead but you, personally, have decided to unilaterally keep this knowledge to yourself. Should you not be shouting the superb results of these 20 years of field trials from the rooftops so that every one/thing can share the benefits? While at the same time explaining that in certain circumstances the use of lead should prevail until the original criteria upon which the use of lead could cease are fully implemented. You surely aren't naive enough to think that the anti lead lobby do not already have access to all of the historical information that they require together with any new research within minutes of it coming into existence.

[Teal]

 

My view is that on animal welfare ground the lead shot restrictions should be removed ASAP.

 

On "animal welfare grounds" the first step would probably to ban shooting. There is a lot of claptrap about lead shot, like several on here I've seen the poisoning that can happen to ducks. It was likely number 7-9 shot they ingested as it was near a clay ground, but it was devastating on the mallard that were put on the pond. Young mallard may not (in your mates highly concerning, unscientific and ethically dubious garden test) ingest BB pellets, but let's not forget that BB pellets are used in a minority of situations.

 

In the UK we don't have "limit bags", and what these guys are alleging to be an cause/issue simply would not happen. In any case I don't think they have a particularly strong evidence for their argument, and without it, it sounds like conjecture to me.

 

What in my opinion is a more serious issue is that, unfortunately in the UK the mallard has been undergoing a serious decline for many years (whilst other duck species are at least holding their own or increasing). I think it's probably a complex issue, but one of the reasons for this is the impact of the continual release of reared mallard, and domestic varieties which are hybridising with the truly wild mallard. This is then reducing their reproductive success. If reared mallard were stopped being released the breeding success of wild mallard would increase through natural selection, but the continued dilution and influx of reared mallard, combined with the fact that numbers of both are being shot means that the average breeding performance of mallard in the UK will continue to decline, and this is worrying IMO.

[mudpatten]

It is`nt selfish but it is strategically sound.

 

I have been shouting these results from the rooftops.

 

I can`t entirely disagree with your last comments. However, there is a world of difference between my strategy and that of Gunsmoke which seems to be to impugn the effeciacy of steel to the point that an outside observer might reasonably conclude that steel should be banned on welfare grounds.

 

I don`t know which way this fight is going to go, but it seems to me that destroying the reputation of what just might be the only viable shot alternative is truly burning ones bridges.

 

Gunsmokes arguments will lead to the end of shooting altogether.

[scotslad]

I agree totally with Mudpattern above, while i don't know an awfull lot about steel shot i have seen wot my mate kills cleanly with steel but he is a cracking shot.

 

Teal also makes some very good points about mallard and the breeding.

 

While there is a massive ammount of very bad science around, esp UK based (generally about anything to do with predator/pest control or shooting) althou most is not uk based so dunno how relative it really is.

 

When studying a wild bird population it is very very hard to isolate exactly wot the problem is as so many varibles almost impossible to tell wot has done wot and even more so when popultions will move around a lot and migrate 1000's of miles away.

 

There will be no doubt that anti's will read forums like this looking for gory photo's or evidence of s breaking law/bad practice so i don't always think some threads are very clever when they highlight bad practice or rumours they heard down the pub/in gunshop.

But rubbishing steel shot with a load of unsubstantiated rumours does not help anything and the fact they are from abroad does not make them any more factual.

Wot ur doing is very similar to wot some fox hunters did/do by exagerating wounding rates in foxes from other forms of control, it does not help hunting cause and only gives them more ammo.

 

Gunsmoke ur passing of mates fag packet experiments as gospel yet slating other scientific sudies that have been peer reviewed (althou may stil be flawed) it really does the argument no favours and just muddies the waters

 

The majority of people aggainst shooting/hunting/lead shot don't really care about ethics/wounding rates/cost or anything else, it is purely a way to restrict shooting and make our lifes harder and hopefully for them make banning shooting 1 step closer

[motty]

 

Tungston has been banned in Denmark.

 

To bring in the lead restrictions the government had to consult with all side, which they did, BASC brought in a voluntary ban in wildfowling that lead to the Statutory Instrument being signed by the Minister at the time. I was told be a Defra Manager that if BASC had said NO! at the time the government would have had to bring in the lead ban by an act of parliament, I believe that we would not have a lead ban for wildfowling now if that was done because there is not the proof to ban lead shot.

 

On the accepted alternative, the BASC have actively been promoting steel shot with misleading information. They tell us steel is as good as lead, using scientific papers written by the anti lead side. Like the misleading information we get for AGW [global warming] the same thing has been going on with lead shot v steel shot. scientific papers made up to fit the outcome they want. The lead shot and steel shot papers are very much like reading the AGW scientific papers and when you go thought the paper trail, both sides AGW and Lead shot science all end up at the door of the UN and world governance with Agenda 21.

 

They came up with paper that shown steel shot being the same as lead. i do not understand now they managed that? In my tests steel shot was so poor I rejected it as be of very little use. The New Zealand article points to there being a higher wounding rate using steel shot. If steel is a poor as in my tests I can understand that point of view.

 

They have already banned wildfowling in parts of Australia over the wounding rate of shooters. How long best we see it here? With the poorer steel shot being used for wildfowling the wounding rate will go up and they the anti will use this against us. BASC are in no place to protect you as they have been promoting steel shot from the start.

 

My view is that on animal welfare ground the lead shot restrictions should be removed ASAP.

 

 

 

What tests have you conducted with steel shot? My own tests conclude that steel shot is very effective.

[Zapp]

 

This text was emailed to me today after a phone call, under instruction that the writer should remain ‘anonymous’.

 

I was going to say that if your chum wants a say on here he should register and post like anyone else. Then I read what he had done and changed my mind. I'd want to remain anonymous too if I had done that.