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Swan deaths from lead weights - Fishing Ban demanded


Leon Roskilly

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Very interesing reading, Phil.

I have invited Jan Harrigan to join us for this discussion. Let's see if she does.

Best Regards,

J.J.

 

Quite pointless. "Swan rescue" centres seem to be manned by people bordering on lunacy. They never attempt to answer the obvious questions like:

Is there lead in the stomachs of swans that are not ill?

How come some swans seem to be able to live out full, healthy lives on some of the busiest angling waters in the country?

 

I just found this on the website of Yorkshire Swan Rescue

All swans admitted to the care of the hospital are blood tested, which of course costs us huge amounts of money. The results are to establish if the bird is suffering from lead or zinc poisoning. The results are shocking, with over 90% of the swans suffering from a lead or zinc level beyond what is acceptable.

 

I don't know a single angler that uses zinc weights, do you?

So heavy metals clearly come from non-angling sources and yet we, despite a twenty year ban, always get the blame.

 

These nutters are best ignored, publicity is the oxygen of the extremist!

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This is historic environmental lead. Smelted and defused lead particles stays in the environment for thousands of years, of that there is no doubt or argument.

 

Coincidently, Bewedly was a site for pewter manufacturing.

 

http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org...es/18/18/94.rtf

 

Most other mentions of lead as found, in reference to waterfowl lead poisoning, point directly to lead shot and weights. I was not able to find many other sources of lead ingestion or inhalation in my web search. Which isn't to say that other environmental factors (such as lead in pewter) are not to blame.

 

As pointed out though there has been a significant deline in the use of lead in the last 50 years. With the exception of China...

Jeff

 

Piscator non solum piscatur.

 

Yellow Prowler13

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Ask me at 75...

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Guest flempike

Collin, let's see if she turns up on this site first. Would be rather brave, wouldn't you say? There's no publicity in it for her but a chance for both parties to put some evidence in front of eachother. I very much doubt that this will change anything at all really, but it could lead to some worthwhile and mutual understanding.

 

We are an easy group to pick on, she wouldn't have a go at the petrol industry for example ... where (among other sources) the real guilt has to be sought (cfr. Phil hackett's post) but much more difficult to get any change whatsoever. Not to mention environmental historic pollution ...

See what happens next.

J.J.

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ColinW up to a point you are correct, deny them the oxygen of publicity. But in this case the council sympathise with her and could ban angling in the town, based on her spurious claims alone.

For them to make and informed decision they must be in possession of all the facts not just the facts driven by a hidden agenda.

Sadly we will always be fighting a rearguard action because of what happened back in the 1980s. We are the soft target every time!

 

It’s interesting to note the set of papers that brought this about were the Dr Spilitt papers, and the evidence on the face of it pointed to lead shot. But I also spoke and corresponded with him over the matter and put the defused lead case to him. To which I never got satisfactory answer, as he never said whether he looked at defused lead from other sources, choosing to stand behind his findings. That being, there was shot in the gizzard, therefore that was the source of the leading in birds.

 

I do not doubt lead shot in some circumstances contributed to some deaths but human nature is such that it’s easier to blame something you can see. Than something you can’t (defused lead in minute lead particle form).

 

My opinion then, as now, was we were blamed and scapegoated for all the ills, when in fact we made only a small, but highly visible contribution to the problem.

 

One further point on heavy metals per se, what people forget because our rivers now support a wealth of life, is that for over a hundred years our forefathers abused them pumping all the industrial wastes into them. Those toxic substances settled out in the sediments in the banks and on the beds of all those rivers. They will because they are extremely long lasting, spew out the insidious poisons for millennia to come.

phil h.

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I think Phil's points nicely illustrate why I think we should be very forthright and uncompromising in these matters. While we are being nice and fluffy and engaging in dialogue, we're being politically outmanoeuvred. I'm afraid I feel that it's the sort of situation where you don't give an inch.

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Guest flempike

I read your viewpoints. Jan Harrigan has now been contacted over the last days by various members of this forum (Tony U, Medwaygreen and myself and probably others) to discuss the matter with us or to draw her attention to our observations in the matter, and we have had no messages, replies or participation from her whatsoever, which I deplore. To conclude that she has no case case against angling, would probably be jumping the gun, but it seems that avoiding discussion with a forum of thousands of anglers from the world over on this issue, would seem that we are indeed 'the soft party' 'easy to pick on', why else would she not show up here? If her case was proven and therefor solid and her cause against angling just and fair, she would be all over this site like a rash with evidence, etc? Wouldn't you? The point being that she doesn't have a point ... Regardless of that, the public is reading what's in the paper(s) are thus misinformed ... which reflects badly on the angling community.

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Just a couple of points.

 

Firstly: The severn was fished very heavily with standard float type rigs throughout the 60's 70's and early 80's and that will have resulted in a great deal of lead in the environment that can get brought back to the surface in times of flood.

If the source of the lead is local and it's this environmental contamination that's to blame, it may make no difference that anglers have been lead free for 20 years, just as it will make no difference if angling were to be banned tomorrow. The lead is there and it will continue to do it's work and banning angling on the Severn will have no effect of lead related swann mortality in the area.

 

Secondly: Last time I checked, swans were migratory birds and so it's very possible that the source of the lead that they're ingesting is mainland Europe where lead shot is not universilly banned. Again, if this is the case, banning angling on the Severn will have absolutely no effect of lead related swann mortality in the area.

 

I'm presuming that post mortms have been carried out and the shot from the birds shots has been positivly identified as anglers split shot and analysed to show that it is lead and not non-toxic shot that's being blamed for lead poisoning from another source. If that's the case you can rule out any shooting link and further research needs to be done into the actual source of the lead because I for one simply don't buy the idea that present day British anglers are fishing with illegal weights and poisoning the birds.

 

It does sadden me that the birding fraternity and anglers are so quick to go at one anothers throats. Afterall, we all want clean waterways with good access and a healthy evironment with divese wildlife. A bigger problem for the Severn and it's wildlife are the nutters who want to install weirs all the way up to Shrewsbury.....

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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The lead is there and it will continue to do it's work and banning angling on the Severn will have no effect of lead related swann mortality in the area.

 

Indeed. Let's not forget though, according to Jan Harrigan in that article, one swan died in 2007. So they're not clearly not in that much peril, are they?

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I have sent an email to the paper suggesting a reporter read this thread and ask for proof that this swan's death was proven to be without doubt from angling!

5460c629-1c4a-480e-b4a4-8faa59fff7d.jpg

 

fishing is nature's medical prescription

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It does sadden me that the birding fraternity and anglers are so quick to go at one anothers throats. Afterall, we all want clean waterways with good access and a healthy evironment with divese wildlife. A bigger problem for the Severn and it's wildlife are the nutters who want to install weirs all the way up to Shrewsbury..

 

I quite agree with you Ken, This is something we all should be looking to sort out between us not having a go at one another,as you say we all want rivers and lakes etc to be free of all pollutents

not just lead. :D

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