National Game Dealers Association statement on lead free ammunition

[Gas seal]

Hi 8 shot wildflowers did use plastic wad and cartridge cases to fire non lead shot. They are now the first using biodegradable wads. The whole world uses plastic. Game shooter also use steel and plastic wads to shoot wildfowl and use far more cartridges than any wildfowl clubs.  Lead shot in rivers or foreshore will wash away with the tide. But will still be on salt marsh’s or around inland flight ponds from more than twenty years ago.   
It’s not just this country that has been using lead for years it’s international when it comes to wildlife. I think all the topics are getting mixed together.

Hi Clangerman l have seen wildfowl with (suspected) lead poisoning, they look the same as woodpigeon with acorn poisoning. Finding carcass of dead wildfowl would be difficult due to the distance that they travel. Unfit birds wouldn’t make the migration. I don’t think they would all die in the same place. A few years ago l counted four hundred ish rabbits over two fields, I used night vision lens, l returned two weeks later with ferrets but not a single live rabbit. I found six fresh dead from VHD and the others just disappeared. Carcass don’t last long.      
 As this is a pigeon shooting website and game dealers will no longer take pigeons shot with lead shooters will just change cartridges or not sell them. Bio wads are available if some take a year to break down its better than plastic never breaking down and the longer it takes the worse it gets.  If lead isn’t deadly to birds of prey why don’t falconers take pigeons shot with lead. I shoot steel l now use bio wads. 

[8 shot]

A couple of us about now try to book three or four day shooting. One shoot told us his Game dealers will carry on with lead shot birds for now but venison will been harder to shift in the near future unless lead free, but interestingly the word is that the shot game market in this country will not increase at all, the supermarkets are just not interested, this lead free thing is more for the European markets. But more interestinly one of the 6 or 7 orgs has not signed up to this NGDA thing but he was unsure which one.

Edited April 13, 2021 by 8 shot

[clangerman]

4 hours ago, Gas seal said:

Hi 8 shot wildflowers did use plastic wad and cartridge cases to fire non lead shot. They are now the first using biodegradable wads. The whole world uses plastic. Game shooter also use steel and plastic wads to shoot wildfowl and use far more cartridges than any wildfowl clubs.  Lead shot in rivers or foreshore will wash away with the tide. But will still be on salt marsh’s or around inland flight ponds from more than twenty years ago.   
It’s not just this country that has been using lead for years it’s international when it comes to wildlife. I think all the topics are getting mixed together.

Hi Clangerman l have seen wildfowl with (suspected) lead poisoning, they look the same as woodpigeon with acorn poisoning. Finding carcass of dead wildfowl would be difficult due to the distance that they travel. Unfit birds wouldn’t make the migration. I don’t think they would all die in the same place. A few years ago l counted four hundred ish rabbits over two fields, I used night vision lens, l returned two weeks later with ferrets but not a single live rabbit. I found six fresh dead from VHD and the others just disappeared. Carcass don’t last long.      
 As this is a pigeon shooting website and game dealers will no longer take pigeons shot with lead shooters will just change cartridges or not sell them. Bio wads are available if some take a year to break down its better than plastic never breaking down and the longer it takes the worse it gets.  If lead isn’t deadly to birds of prey why don’t falconers take pigeons shot with lead. I shoot steel l now use bio wads. 

as i was born in the countryside to a farming family having known keepers wardens and farmers who know their business had these bodies existed they would have been found FACT now we have the truth from a basc rep this is indeed a pigeon forum for pigeon shooters who we now know have been sold out by those behind this rubbish just to sell game if that is not shooting your OWN side in the back i don’t know what is 

[Gas seal]

Hi for many years I’ve read papers published on the effects of lead on wildfowl. When ingested by water fowl and wading birds it acts in the gizzard. It’s not instant death. The point every one is missing is the damage to eggs not hatching. The wildfowl breed in Russia or Greenland this is were to look for data. This is were a lot of birds will die more so when they are  moulting .it takes a lot of energy when mounting. I’ve never been on a forum website before my 10year old great granddaughter gave me iPad lessons.I’m old old school shooter from an old shooting family. I have helped a lot of shooters to keep shooting over the years. If shooters don’t stick together they have no chance. I seen all of the augments for or against lead years ago but for myself it’s about the environment not the market place. From what I have noticed in the forums there is to much emphasis on slight sizes of lead pellets and types of cartridges to kill pigeons. I have shown in my photos a small amount of steel pellets in a cardboard tubes will kill pigeons. I think most pigeon shooters have already tried or are using a non lead cartridge. In the USA hunters stopped using lead to protect wildlife because they want to hunt it. If we stop using lead it’ looks better to do it because we want to than wait until we have to. Again why don’t falconers or zoos take pigeons shot with lead.

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

For anyone interested in reading summaries of some of the latest research up to 2019 see the following:

Ambio - a journal of the human environment
Volume 48, issue 9, September 2019
Special Issue: Lead in Hunting Ammunition: Persistent Problems and Solutions

https://link.springer.com/journal/13280/volumes-and-issues/48-9