Lead Shot on Wildfowl.

[HEAD SHOT]

Forgive me if I appear unknowlegeable but I would like to know why all sizes of lead shot were banned on wildfowl. The lead shot, be it from shooters or fishermen was being digested by birds for gizzard stones. This resulted in there poisoning. The question is, what size of lead was being picked up by the birds. Shurely size 5,6,7 etc were not a problem or did they just decide to ban the lot to avoid argument.

[Markio]

Don't use lead, period. Size has nothing to do with it. Hope that helps.

[HEAD SHOT]

Don't use lead, period. Size has nothing to do with it. Hope that helps.

No help at all.

[henry d]

Any lead shot ingested by gritting fowl will eventually kill them, the gizzard is an involuntary muscle that grinds all types of vegetable matter down by using small stones and grit and when lead is ingested with it then it gets ground down(as it is a soft metal) and is absorbed into the gut wall/liver and kills very quickly.

Swans have been found with large lead ball weights in their gizzards.

 

Story time - A field was being baited for foreign shooters to shoot geese in the Tayside area, they killed many geese over a short while and fired many cartridges. After the field had been shot it was left undisturbed so numbers would build up again, however many geese were found a little later dead or dying on the Tay estuary after ingesting the lead that was spent over the field.

Never mind the reasons behind it, lead will kill fowland they will pick it up from shot size 8 and up, dependent on their relative size.

[Markio]

Don't use lead, period. Size has nothing to do with it. Hope that helps.

No help at all.

 

Reread you question and i missed your point. Thought you said, "...What sizes were banned....". Hence my answer.

[HEAD SHOT]

henryd. If thats the case then the banning of lead had to be. Supprised a bird would pick up small shot though. Its just a pitty a cheap and equally good substitute for lead has not been found. Thats another topic that I am sure has been the subject for debate many times. Thanks.

[bob300w]

henryd. If thats the case then the banning of lead had to be. Supprised a bird would pick up small shot though. Its just a pitty a cheap and equally good substitute for lead has not been found. Thats another topic that I am sure has been the subject for debate many times. Thanks.

The problem arises when wildfowl ingest spent lead shot pellets while feeding on the bottom of lakes and marshes. They "hoover" up grit and small stones from water beds which they need as part of their digestive system.

Lead shot pellets which then find their way into their gizzards erode, and dissolve, through the grinding action of the gizzard.

 

Then, as lead moves through the intestines, some of the lead compounds damage the liver and kidneys, lead poisoning develops and ultimately the bird will succumb to the malady.

[starlight32]

Still not relative to the issue of using lead over the foreshore. Tidal movement shifts any residual lead off dabbling areas used by wildfowl.

 

As for fact, prior to the lead ban extensive testing was done on estuaries,foreshore and inland marshes which were intensively shot.

 

Out of a great many samples and boreholes which were drilled over a depth of 12 feet deep a piece only a total of around 6 pieces of lead shot were found.

 

The results were were never made open to the general public.

 

I know because as a member of a wildfowling club at the time it was going on I watched them bore the holes on one of our bits of ground which was done in around 1995.

 

All pretty inconclusive in my opinion, as in my opinion most of the lead shot found in wildfowl as come from fishing.

 

We followed the lead ban under the Euarasion aggreement which started in the united states.

[bob300w]

Still not relative to the issue of using lead over the foreshore. Tidal movement shifts any residual lead off dabbling areas used by wildfowl.

 

As for fact, prior to the lead ban extensive testing was done on estuaries,foreshore and inland marshes which were intensively shot.

 

Out of a great many samples and boreholes which were drilled over a depth of 12 feet deep a piece only a total of around 6 pieces of lead shot were found.

 

The results were were never made open to the general public.

 

I know because as a member of a wildfowling club at the time it was going on I watched them bore the holes on one of our bits of ground which was done in around 1995.

 

All pretty inconclusive in my opinion, as in my opinion most of the lead shot found in wildfowl as come from fishing.

 

We followed the lead ban under the Euarasion aggreement which started in the united states.

I would think that bore-hole results would be very hit and miss, and I can't imagine why a bore-hole 12 feet deep would have any bearing on lead ingestion by wildfowl, it's not going to affect anything that deep, and it's not going to come to the surface.

If you are ever down this way, I can show you collections of lead shot on the foreshore where the tides have washed it into lower laying pools, so much in fact that when I was pistol shooting, I used to go to these areas and shovel the shot into a bucket, to melt down, to cast bullets.

There is no way that this came from fishing!

Lead poisoning in waterfowl was known to exist in this country as far back as the late 1800s.

 

Edit; As an afterthought, our club used to shoot 30 nights per year at clays, with an average turnout of 70 guns, and we used the same ground for 20 years. Even allowing 1oz of shot per cartridge at 50 clays, that works out at over 58 tons of lead dumped on the countryside. It would take a lot of anglers to lose weights to that amount! I forsee the day when lead is banned totally for shot.

And before anyone asks, no, I am not a fisherman, in any shape or form.

Edited April 23, 2008 by bob300w

[hawkeye]

No one likes to see birds suffer but doesn't it seem strange that you cannot use lead on wildfowl,

But you can use lead on pigeons and both these species could be in the same field so what is the point.

 

For instance i have one farm that has ponds in the field that ducks and geese use

this same filed is planted with rape so we shoot over it quite a lot using lead. :yahoo:

[Highlander]

Birds eat rape seed and size doesn't come much smaller than that.

 

On the subject of the lead ban I'd like to know where the evidence is/was that birds died due to 'ingesting' lead as oppossed to dying from being shot/wounded. Did anyone ever do a serious scientific study of the birds gizzards or was it all hyped up as another way to slow us shooters down and eventually get shooting anything banned? I appreciate that clay shooting grounds might become contaminated with lead shot after many years but surely not your average field or foreshore that get's shot over on an ad hoc basis. Anyone know where the evidence is?

[Piebob]

I'm with you Highlander. I have always believed (perhaps mistakenly I admit) that there was scant evidence of lead poisoning causing death in wildfowl. And what evidence there was, was very questionable.

[anser2]

On the foreshore I doubt if there was ever much problem with spent lead shot killing ducks. However on a flight pond of regularly flooded meadow it’s a different story as large numbers of shells can be fired in a small area leading to a build up of toxic lead. The problem is worse if the pond bottom is hard. I used to catch a lot of tufted duck and a few pochard on a gravel pit that were suffering from lead poison. Caught thousands of wigeon\mallard\teal ect , but they never showed any sign of lead poison. I presume the lead shot was lying in water too deep for the mallard ect to reach. The lead takes a week or more to kill a mallard sized duck.

 

The big difference between the USA and the UK is that we have longer shooting seasons. Once the season closed in the USA sick duck could be noticed having ingested lead. However in this country duck in the early stages of lead poisoning are likely to be the last duck to flight in the morning , or may stay all day on the marsh. They are also likely to fly lower and thus more likely to be shot as rather than be found in a sick condition.

 

Another potential problem comes from eagles and hawks eating birds with lead in their body and in due course become poisoned themselves.

 

 

Perhaps the most anoying thing about having to use non toxic shot is that wildfowlers on saltmarshes need high performance cartridges as many shots are taken at max range. But here there is little problem with lead shot. Its the inland flight pond shooters who are the least likely to be checked where the real problem lies. In the USA there is a growing problem with land birds also posioned by lead including game species.

[HEAD SHOT]

This is all very interesting. BUT evidence is what we need. But there again, the ban is in and in it will stay. The question is, when will all lead shot be banned?

[henry d]

......... Anyone know where the evidence is?

 

 

My apologies for not expanding on that, it was a few local wildfowling club members that found dead and dying birds on the foreshore and islands of the Tay, the bodies were sent for analysis and it was lead poisoning

[Piebob]

From ingestion of shot? From being pricked? From ingestion of discarded/lost fishing weights? From any other potential sources?

 

I think I'm clutching at straws now, but we need to be exactly clear and not guessing.

[al4x]

the interesting thing is has the poisoning stopped? as surely lead from years back will keep being washed about and uncovered.

[anser2]

Piebob. Ingested lead from being swallowed causes the posioning. A single pellet will kill a mallard in 5-6 days. Lead in a pricked bird will not cause posioning. There were people walking around for years until they died from old age with lead in parts of their bodies from germans bullets and shells.

 

As for proof , its a bit sketchy in the Uk but there are several cases of whooper swans in Fife on the foreshore , a lot of greylags on a Scottish Loch ( I forget which ) , duck on the Ouse Washes. However there are loads of examples in the USA , France and Denmark.

Lead poisoning kills an estimated 1.5 to 3 million waterfowl each year (2 to 3 percent of the nation’s annual waterfowl population) in the USA.

 

As for how read

http://www.teachingtools.com/H2O/LeadPoisoninghtm.htm

&

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-1...26676--,00.html

 

Examples of the problem

 

A quote from Spain

Marbled teal (Marmaronetta angustirostris) and white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala) are the two European ducks threatened with global extinction. Ingested Pb shot was present in 32% of shot stifftail ducks and 70 and 43% of dead or moribund stifftails and marbled teal, respectively. Lead-shot ingestion was more frequent in Valencia (eastern Spain), where Pb-shot densities were higher and grit scarcer. Selection of larger grit similar in size to Pb shot may explain the higher rate of Pb-shot ingestion observed in stifftails. Ingested shot was found more frequently in juvenile stifftails than in adults. Lead bone concentrations were higher in ducklings < 9 d old than in fully grown teal and were also higher in adult than in juvenile teal. Our results show the need for a ban of Pb shot for waterfowl hunting in Spain and the cleanup of spent shot at major wetlands.

 

 

For loads more examples just type in Lead Posioning ducks into Google and you will have pages of examples.

[henry d]

From ingestion of shot? From being pricked? From ingestion of discarded/lost fishing weights? From any other potential sources?

 

I think I'm clutching at straws now, but we need to be exactly clear and not guessing.

 

You didn`t read my previous post then ?? >>HERE<<