Lead shot

[DMCA]

I happened to see quite a nice programme on the telly this week about the Thames...following it from source to outfall and concentrating on the parallels between man's/the wildlife's use of the river.

 

Of course, when it came to a section on swan upping the business of lead shot was mentioned.

 

This was done fairly unequivocally...along the lines "there used to be x thousand swans on the river but their numbers were reduced to x-minus-a-lot thousand after being poisoned by anglers' lead weights...the numbers are now recovering after lead weights were made illegal..."

 

As my memory of the lead ban and the alleged damage to swans at the time is hazy, my question is...was the situation ever clear? Did anglers at the time (officially?) put their hands up and say guilty...we'll stop using lead shot? Did they deny responsibility (blaming shooting or increased boat traffic perhaps, or simply arguing that 'real' anglers don't leave shot behind) and have to be legislated against unwillingly? If so, should we be convinced by the figures mentioned in the programme that anglers were in fact to blame? Or was it all more complicated than that? I don't think the intention of the programme was to denigrate anglers as such but it did give the impression that, at least in this respect, anglers were definitely harmful to the environment and that their (selfish) practices had had to be curbed from outside.

 

Finally, for those who shoot, what is the situation with that? Surely one blast from a shotgun leaves more shot in the water or elsewhere than a careful angler could lose in a year (or I am just exhibiting my ignorance here?) Has there been legislation that affects lead use in shooting?

[chesters1]

they may have been banned but did we all in honesty throw tubs of now illegal shot away ,or did we use up the old stuff before buying new?

probably the reason the swan population has declined on some rivers is because of the rise in swan "sanctuaries" after all a daily free feed is always better than grubbing around in dirty old river beds.

lead shot and its poison will be around for hundreds of years ,i detected an old pond that was being refurbished the banks were just one big signal (lead ,silver paper etc) and once dredged the lake bed was the same ,yes we know now thats its poisonus ,but our predecssors didnt know or more likely care ,our defence is now its non toxic

unfortunatly nowadays not a defence (as in the case of asbestos ) that counts ,yes swans will die because of lead ,but thousands will live because of improved water conditions( usually because of angling pressure) .

[Excalibur]

Re lead shot in shotgun cartridges, there is a theoretical lead ban which is unbelievably complex.

Lead shot is banned for shooting waterfowl, as they live in wetland areas, over which lead shot is baned. However, the ban does not extend to non-waterfowl, which obviously live on non-wetland areas! The last time I went on an organised shoot, we were instructed on pain of a smack in the lug, to only use lead free shot for the ducks on the shoot, as it is bad news to sell any ducks which are found to have lead shot in them .

However, if a pheasant were to get up on the

same drive, we could cheerfully let fly at it with lead!

Angling has actually benefitted from the lead shot ban in my opinion, with cheap effective alternatives available. Shooting as yet is not in that happy position, as the alternatives are either crap ballistically ( steel) or horrendously expensive ( bismuth, tungsten).

With regard to the swans, I don't think anglers were ever deemed to have caused major swan deaths, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story??

 

[ 11. September 2002, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: Excalibur ]

[Jim Roper]

Pheasants are natural marsh birds.

You may not fire at them or anything else with lead shot if it is within a desinated SSSI.

You may not fire at any wildfowl with lead shot wherever they are.

Had all this out at our wildfowlwers committee meeting last night.

There is a BASC booklet to be had on the subject.

 

Jim Roper

 

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