Lead shot ingestion in birds

[Gordon R]

It's embarrassing. Don't answer a question, but pose a few. Amateurish.

The thread showcases a masterclass in avoidance. I do wonder if BASC are fully aware of just how badly they come out of this.

[Rewulf]

3 hours ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

With all this in mind, do you think restrictions in the UK on the use of lead shot in wetlands are evidence-based? If so, what evidence did you agree with

Why do you keep repeating this question ? It's irrelevant, lead shot over wetlands is banned, and has been for 26 years ! It's never going to be lifted, just like the 'voluntary ' lead shot and bullets for live quarry ban that is pending, is never going to be lifted.

Conor, it's very clear that you are anti lead, the poor wee chick's thing confirmed this, and your constant diatribe, quoting people like Pain ad nauseum, sets you firmly in the anti lead, and anti shooting camp.

Your bias is clear, so why are you debating this topic like you are fighting for us ?

We are not stupid.

[clangerman]

connor and basc are now so far down the toxic toxic rd they have no choice but to keep throwing mud and dodgy data in the hope some sticks! 

[Old farrier]

3 hours ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

Thanks, let's look at it another way then, do you think wildfowlers such as yourself should challenge the 1999 lead shot regs onwards on the basis of your view that the research on ducks has mostly been on force feeding captive ducks until they died, and your view of no impact on the duck population since those regulations?

 

the science was bad the regulations are bad is there any sense to not being able to shoot a duck on a river but you can shoot a pheasant in the same spot along with pigeon and if you desire you can shoot clay pigeon across it all day long 

well is there any sense to it ?

[Pukka Bundook]

6 hours ago, Old farrier said:

 

the science was bad the regulations are bad is there any sense to not being able to shoot a duck on a river but you can shoot a pheasant in the same spot along with pigeon and if you desire you can shoot clay pigeon across it all day long 

well is there any sense to it ?

I thought to say exactly what you have, Old Farrier, but thought what's the use?

We can shoot pheasants on a stubble, (with lead) but not ducks on the same stubble.

Yes, shoot clays over a waterway with lead.

No restrictions on lead for upland birds here.

None of it logical and you cant fix stupid.

Best 

R.

[Konor]

19 hours ago, Scully said:

Personally you’re stating exactly how I feel, although I don’t have the knowledge, the patience or the articulation to put across those points so logically and convincingly. 
I think BASC have severely let down not only their members but UK shooting in general. 

I’m far from the brightest shilling in the box Scully but I find it’s easy to put into words an honest opinion when  confronted with information that seems to have a bias to substantiate a point and aims to reduce an argument to “obvious black and white “for convenience. 

[Old farrier]

1 hour ago, Pukka Bundook said:

I thought to say exactly what you have, Old Farrier, but thought what's the use?

We can shoot pheasants on a stubble, (with lead) but not ducks on the same stubble.

Yes, shoot clays over a waterway with lead.

No restrictions on lead for upland birds here.

None of it logical and you cant fix stupid.

Best 

R.

Thank you appreciate your comment 😊👍

[rbrowning2]

20th December 2024

The COT concluded that the MOE values indicated that at most any risk of toxicity from lead in relation to the maternal diet and other potential sources of maternal exposure is likely to be small.  Therefore, current exposure levels for lead are unlikely to be of any concern to health in the vast majority of women and fetuses

 

https://cot.food.gov.uk/COT statement on the potential risks from lead in the maternal diet%3A Lay summary

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

10 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Why do you keep repeating this question ? It's irrelevant, lead shot over wetlands is banned, and has been for 26 years ! It's never going to be lifted, just like the 'voluntary ' lead shot and bullets for live quarry ban that is pending, is never going to be lifted.

Conor, it's very clear that you are anti lead, the poor wee chick's thing confirmed this, and your constant diatribe, quoting people like Pain ad nauseum, sets you firmly in the anti lead, and anti shooting camp.

Your bias is clear, so why are you debating this topic like you are fighting for us ?

We are not stupid.

You have yet to clarify what paper you read in making various assertions as it clearly wasn't this one - you might correct your error, read the paper and let us know what you think:

Stroud, D.A., Pain, D.J., Green, R.E., 2021. Evidence of widespread illegal hunting of waterfowl in England despite partial regulation of the use of lead shotgun ammunition. Conservation Evidence Journal 18, 18–24.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352361054_Evidence_of_widespread_illegal_hunting_of_waterfowl_in_England_despite_partial_regulation_of_the_use_of_lead_shotgun_ammunition

Furthermore, you have yet to clarify your assertion that BASC is basing policy on whatever paper you have read? 

[Konor]

13 hours ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

Thanks, let's look at it another way then, do you think wildfowlers such as yourself should challenge the 1999 lead shot regs onwards on the basis of your view that the research on ducks has mostly been on force feeding captive ducks until they died, and your view of no impact on the duck population since those regulations?

I don’t think you have gained sufficient credibility to quiz forum members when you have continually declined to answer questions put to you or comment on points raised. Definitely a case of you reap what you sow. 

13 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

Furthermore, you have yet to clarify your assertion that BASC is basing policy on whatever paper you have read? 

And you have failed to issue an apology for wrongful accusations so I wouldn’t be expecting many replies to your multiple questions

[rbrowning2]

18 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

You have yet to clarify what paper you read in making various assertions as it clearly wasn't this one - you might correct your error, read the paper and let us know what you think:

Stroud, D.A., Pain, D.J., Green, R.E., 2021. Evidence of widespread illegal hunting of waterfowl in England despite partial regulation of the use of lead shotgun ammunition. Conservation Evidence Journal 18, 18–24.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352361054_Evidence_of_widespread_illegal_hunting_of_waterfowl_in_England_despite_partial_regulation_of_the_use_of_lead_shotgun_ammunition

Furthermore, you have yet to clarify your assertion that BASC is basing policy on whatever paper you have read? 

So is it good law to penalise all those who legally engaged in the using lead shot by banning it for all? 

that principle is not applied to all laws, is it?

 

Edited Friday at 10:00 by rbrowning2

[Rewulf]

29 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

You have yet to clarify what paper you read in making various assertions as it clearly wasn't this one - you might correct your error, read the paper and let us know what you think:

Stroud, D.A., Pain, D.J., Green, R.E., 2021. Evidence of widespread illegal hunting of waterfowl in England despite partial regulation of the use of lead shotgun ammunition. Conservation Evidence Journal 18, 18–24

Unlike you Conor , I read the paper, and checked the reference material they used.

D. Stroud, D.J. Pain & R.E. Green / Conservation Evidence Journal (2021) 18, 18-24

ISSN 1758-2067

21

Prosecutions

We requested the Investigations Department of

the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to

provide us with all records for 1999-2020 of wildlife

crimes involving birds in the UK for which

prosecutions were brought under the Lead Shot

Regulations and the number of those in which a

conviction was obtained from their Species

Protection Database.

CONSEQUENCES

Number of ducks shot in the UK 1999 – 2020

Aebischer (2019, Table 2) gives estimated

numbers shot in the UK of the nine species of ducks

for 2004, 2012 and 2016. The annual totals across

all species in each of these three years were 966,080,

1,001,880 and 1,136,200 ducks shot respectively.

Most of these (84%) were mallards. Aebischer

(2019) provided 95% confidence intervals for the

species-specific estimates for each of the three years,

which indicated that the estimates for the most

frequently shot species, and hence the total across all

species, were reasonably precise. Although the

three annual grand totals increase over time, the

confidence intervals for the estimates of change in

the UK bag of individual species over the period

covered by the PACEC data, as shown in Aebischer

(2019, Table 1), do not indicate any statistically

significant increases. We therefore assumed that the

UK bag remained constant throughout the period

1999 - 2020 at the mean of the values for 2004, 2012

and 2016 derived from Aebischer (2019) (1,034,720

ducks per year).

Proportion of the UK duck bag shot in England

For each method, estimated proportions of duck

shooting in England were higher for 2012 than 2004,

and when gun-days were used as the measure of

shooting effort, rather than the number of providers

(Table 1). The assumptions made about the

proportion of lowland driven shoots that released

birds made little difference to the proportions

calculated for 2012. Given that we have no strong

reasons to accept any one of these methods or sets of

assumptions over the others, we calculated a

weighted mean of the mean of all values for each

year with the number of PACEC survey respondents

in 2004 (n = 1094) and 2012 (n = 3843) as the

weights. This gave a weighted mean proportion of

duck shooting located in England of 0.799, with an

overall range of values of 0.672 – 0.852 (Table 1).

Proportion of ducks shot in breach of the 1999

Regulations in England

Surveys of the proportions of shot ducks

purchased in England in 2001, 2008, 2009 and 2013

that were killed illegally using lead shotgun

ammunition have published (Cromie et al. 2015).

Sampled ducks were believed to have been shot in

England, as determined at time of purchase.

Embedded shot were extracted and their metal type

determined by forensic examination (see Cromie et

al. (2015) and references therein). The proportions

of ducks killed illegally using lead shotgun pellets in

breach of the Lead Shot Regulations was high and

showed some indication of an increase over time

(68%, 70%, 70%, 77% respectively). However,

variation among years in the proportion of illegally-

shot ducks was not statistically significant (χ2(3) =

2.49, p = 0.476). A logistic regression model fitted

to the data, with illegally-shot or not as the binary

response variable and year as a continuous

independent covariate, indicated a non-significant

tendency for the proportion to increase over time

(likelihood-ratio test; χ2(1) =

Go to citations on the paper , lots for you to read there about how they gathered evidence....

[Scully]

1 hour ago, rbrowning2 said:

So is it good law to penalise all those who legally engaged in the using lead shot by banning it for all? 

that principle is not applied to all laws, is it?

 

That principle just applies in matters related to shooting. Oh, and carrying knives. 🙂

[Conor O'Gorman]

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

Unlike you Conor , I read the paper, and checked the reference material they used.

D. Stroud, D.J. Pain & R.E. Green / Conservation Evidence Journal (2021) 18, 18-24

ISSN 1758-2067

21

Prosecutions

We requested the Investigations Department of

the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to

provide us with all records for 1999-2020 of wildlife

crimes involving birds in the UK for which

prosecutions were brought under the Lead Shot

Regulations and the number of those in which a

conviction was obtained from their Species

Protection Database.

CONSEQUENCES

Number of ducks shot in the UK 1999 – 2020

Aebischer (2019, Table 2) gives estimated

numbers shot in the UK of the nine species of ducks

for 2004, 2012 and 2016. The annual totals across

all species in each of these three years were 966,080,

1,001,880 and 1,136,200 ducks shot respectively.

Most of these (84%) were mallards. Aebischer

(2019) provided 95% confidence intervals for the

species-specific estimates for each of the three years,

which indicated that the estimates for the most

frequently shot species, and hence the total across all

species, were reasonably precise. Although the

three annual grand totals increase over time, the

confidence intervals for the estimates of change in

the UK bag of individual species over the period

covered by the PACEC data, as shown in Aebischer

(2019, Table 1), do not indicate any statistically

significant increases. We therefore assumed that the

UK bag remained constant throughout the period

1999 - 2020 at the mean of the values for 2004, 2012

and 2016 derived from Aebischer (2019) (1,034,720

ducks per year).

Proportion of the UK duck bag shot in England

For each method, estimated proportions of duck

shooting in England were higher for 2012 than 2004,

and when gun-days were used as the measure of

shooting effort, rather than the number of providers

(Table 1). The assumptions made about the

proportion of lowland driven shoots that released

birds made little difference to the proportions

calculated for 2012. Given that we have no strong

reasons to accept any one of these methods or sets of

assumptions over the others, we calculated a

weighted mean of the mean of all values for each

year with the number of PACEC survey respondents

in 2004 (n = 1094) and 2012 (n = 3843) as the

weights. This gave a weighted mean proportion of

duck shooting located in England of 0.799, with an

overall range of values of 0.672 – 0.852 (Table 1).

Proportion of ducks shot in breach of the 1999

Regulations in England

Surveys of the proportions of shot ducks

purchased in England in 2001, 2008, 2009 and 2013

that were killed illegally using lead shotgun

ammunition have published (Cromie et al. 2015).

Sampled ducks were believed to have been shot in

England, as determined at time of purchase.

Embedded shot were extracted and their metal type

determined by forensic examination (see Cromie et

al. (2015) and references therein). The proportions

of ducks killed illegally using lead shotgun pellets in

breach of the Lead Shot Regulations was high and

showed some indication of an increase over time

(68%, 70%, 70%, 77% respectively). However,

variation among years in the proportion of illegally-

shot ducks was not statistically significant (χ2(3) =

2.49, p = 0.476). A logistic regression model fitted

to the data, with illegally-shot or not as the binary

response variable and year as a continuous

independent covariate, indicated a non-significant

tendency for the proportion to increase over time

(likelihood-ratio test; χ2(1) =

Go to citations on the paper , lots for you to read there about how they gathered evidence....

Great, could you clarify your assertion that BASC is basing policy on this paper then?

[Conor O'Gorman]

14 hours ago, Scully said:

Is the deliberate poisoning of ducks with lead regarded as research? 
It was all discussed on this very forum @Conor O'Gorman if you care to do a search; around about the time Swifty and the LAG were pushing the same agenda you are now. You remember? Just before its findings were dismissed by ministers? 
In reply to your last paragraph; I suppose much depends on whether the evidence is skewed or exaggerated to meet a certain agenda, and I believe it to be so. 

That's fine if you don't agree with the science and don't support the voluntary transition away from live quarry shooting based on that science - it is your choice.  As regards studies worldwide so far we have looked at proof that the following gamebird species residing in terrestrial habitats in the following countries ingest lead shot.

UK - grey partridge, red grouse, pheasant and red-legged partridge. 
Spain - woodpigeon, rock dove, stock dove, turtle-dove, Barbary partridge and common quail .
Bulgaria - grey pheasant, partridge, quail and turtle dove. 
USA - American woodcock, bobwhite quail, chukar partridge and mourning doves.
Canada - pheasant, chukar partridge.
 

[Conor O'Gorman]

12 hours ago, Old farrier said:

 

the science was bad the regulations are bad is there any sense to not being able to shoot a duck on a river but you can shoot a pheasant in the same spot along with pigeon and if you desire you can shoot clay pigeon across it all day long 

well is there any sense to it ?

No, there is no sense to that and many other laws around shooting as we all know. That is why WAGBI and BASC have long advocated self-regulation over legislation in the face of pressures to change laws around quarry species in particular.

Voluntary measures on moving away from lead shot are not new - they go back decades and the following paper is an interesting overview of that for angling and shooting.

https://www.oxfordleadsymposium.info/wp-content/uploads/OLS_proceedings/papers/OLS_proceedings_stroud.pdf

Currently, we have a voluntary transition being encouraged away from lead shot for live quarry shooting underpinned by science. As per my reply to Scully that's fine if you don't agree with the science and don't support the voluntary transition away from live quarry shooting based on that science - it is your choice. 

There are also voluntary measures being encouraged around the harvesting of some quarry species underpinned by science - a voluntary moratorium on shooting pochard, voluntary bag limits for pintail and European white-fronted geese, and delaying shooting of goldeneye, snipe and woodcock. Again your choice.

https://basc.org.uk/wildfowling/advice/sustainable-shooting-code-of-practice/

 

[Old farrier]

16 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

That's fine if you don't agree with the science and don't support the voluntary transition away from live quarry shooting based on that science - it is your choice.  As regards studies worldwide so far we have looked at proof that the following gamebird species residing in terrestrial habitats in the following countries ingest lead shot.

UK - grey partridge, red grouse, pheasant and red-legged partridge. 
Spain - woodpigeon, rock dove, stock dove, turtle-dove, Barbary partridge and common quail .
Bulgaria - grey pheasant, partridge, quail and turtle dove. 
USA - American woodcock, bobwhite quail, chukar partridge and mourning doves.
Canada - pheasant, chukar partridge.
 

Indeed you have looked at it 

now correlation with other causes of death and mortality will show that it’s minimal 

has there been any evidence of other causes of deaths 

power lines 

predation

wind turbines 

automobile impact 

fence line impact 

agriculture spray 

perhaps if theses were included it would be more credible science 

[Conor O'Gorman]

2 hours ago, rbrowning2 said:

So is it good law to penalise all those who legally engaged in the using lead shot by banning it for all? 

that principle is not applied to all laws, is it?

 

No it's not and see reply above to Old Farrier on voluntary measures being preferable to changes in law which tend to be blunt one-size fits all approaches.

[Conor O'Gorman]

Just now, Old farrier said:

Indeed you have looked at it 

now correlation with other causes of death and mortality will show that it’s minimal 

has there been any evidence of other causes of deaths 

power lines 

predation

wind turbines 

automobile impact 

fence line impact 

agriculture spray 

perhaps if theses were included it would be more credible science 

Yes lots more research could be done - and this has been done in USA on waterfowl - huge investment of funds invested in research - some of that coming from hunting permits I think. Also, investment in hunter education on the science and the effectiveness of alternatives to lead shot. This has been going on for decades.

More research may well be done in the UK in due course but that will likely not change your view of the science and will likely not change the fact that there is a voluntary transition away from lead shot for live quarry shooting underpinned by the science already taking place, that there are lead shot regulations in place, and that there may be legislative proposals ahead. 

[Rewulf]

48 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

Great, could you clarify your assertion that BASC is basing policy on this paper then?

Well yes , because youve quoted the paper based on its research 
Why would you do that if you, as in BASC, didnt agree with the pseudo science attached to it ?

 

19 minutes ago, Conor O'Gorman said:

Currently, we have a voluntary transition being encouraged away from lead shot for live quarry shooting underpinned by science. As per my reply to Scully that's fine if you don't agree with the science and don't support the voluntary transition away from live quarry shooting based on that science - it is your choice.

And there you go, BASC policy based on 'science'
The science propagated by Pain et al, the RSPB and many other anti shooting entities, can you not see the problem here ?

Your 'voluntary transition' may soon become an outright ban, and if YOU are leading the fight against this, its a certainty, because your heart tells you that lead should be banned completely to save the wee chicks.
This makes you, and BASC for that matter, totally unsuitable to represent people who shoot in the UK, because you are in bed with those that would have it totally banned.

[Conor O'Gorman]

24 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Well yes , because youve quoted the paper based on its research 
Why would you do that if you, as in BASC, didnt agree with the pseudo science attached to it ?

 

And there you go, BASC policy based on 'science'
The science propagated by Pain et al, the RSPB and many other anti shooting entities, can you not see the problem here ?

Your 'voluntary transition' may soon become an outright ban, and if YOU are leading the fight against this, its a certainty, because your heart tells you that lead should be banned completely to save the wee chicks.
This makes you, and BASC for that matter, totally unsuitable to represent people who shoot in the UK, because you are in bed with those that would have it totally banned.

The problem is that many bird species ingest lead shot as we have seen in the evidence shared so far in this thread, ie.

UK - grey partridge, red grouse, pheasant and red-legged partridge. 
Spain - woodpigeon, rock dove, stock dove, turtle-dove, Barbary partridge and common quail .
Bulgaria - grey pheasant, partridge, quail and turtle dove. 
USA - American woodcock, bobwhite quail, chukar partridge and mourning doves.
Canada - pheasant, chukar partridge.

The science is clear and if you want to blame a few scientists here in the UK for their research into what is widely accepted as a scientific fact going back decades across the world that is your choice. If you want to mock me for sharing some science and knock BASC for supporting a voluntary transition away from lead shot for live quarry shooting that is your choice. You can keep using lead shot, that is your choice. But your views won't change the science.

[Gordon R]

Quote

to save the wee chicks.

Rewulf - have you ever said anything truly daft and regretted it? The above is a classic. Emotive rubbish which devalued anything following. 🙂

 

Edited Friday at 13:44 by Gordon R

[Rewulf]

2 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Rewulf - have you ever said anything truly daft and regretted it? The above is a classic. Emotive rubbish which devalued anything following. 🙂

 

I dont really understand your reasoning behind that Gordon ?
The 'wee chicks' thing is a classic Conor quote.
I believe Conors heart is more inclined towards saving the tiny amount of birds that may or may not die from ingesting lead shot, using dubious science that makes assumptions from cherry picked data.
He cites naturalists that are clearly anti shooting sports, I dont believe that is compatible with an organisation that promotes shooting sports ?

[Gordon R]

Rewulf - I wasn't really quoting you. I was quoting someone who once made an impassioned plea on behalf of the "wee chicks". We are both aware of who posted the immortal "wee chicks". 

I worded my last post clumsily. When I read the original (not yours) posting, I felt slightly sick and reached for my special bucket. Even now - weeks / months later, it still makes me laugh.

[Penelope]

On 25/02/2025 at 17:49, jall25 said:

Conor

Just reading on the BASC website about how BASC are urging .243 to be classified as able to continue to use lead and the fact that 60,000 people will be affected - If part of the move to lead free is to produce meat that can be sold as such what will be done will all these animals all these people cull with .243 and lead - can they not be sold into the market - Is BASC happy then that people risk the health of themselves and their own family eating this if BASC really think its detrimental to health ?

It just seems at odds with itself to me 

Any thoughts / clarifications please ?

There's no bloody risk, never has been.