HSE Lead restriction extension

[Spear Chucker]

How exactly have I done that?
I’ve been polite, avoided name calling and confined myself to pointing out a common factor between some pro lead proponents and other groups who tend to favour their own personal beliefs over science.
There are constant demands for scientific evidence, yet every single scientific paper, study or finding which does not support the personal beliefs of the pro lead lobby is rejected out of hand without a scintilla of evidence to back up the claims that lead
( often just their own personal lead) is harmless.
Its not harmless, its a toxic heavy metal with no safe limit.
I have personally given my dogs a dose of lead poisoning by feeding them contaminated venison. I don’t use lead ammo for deer any more.
A falconer friend won’t take game taken with lead ammo for his birds, no responsible falconer will.
The studies demonstrating the toxicity of lead shot when consumed by a variety of game birds and wildfowl go back for over half a century and are consistent in their findings.
You may pick flaws in the methodology and analysis of each and every one( if you have the time) but the overall body of evidence is irrefutable.
(1). Lead in commonly used types of ammunition is toxic when consumed by wild birds.
(2). Some of them are pretty good at finding it and eating it, especially in the forms of lead shot and small fragments of full bore rifle bullets in large game carcasses and gut piles.

Take it or leave it yourself, but that, plus the WHO finding that there is no safe level of lead ingestion in humans, is the basis of the proposed lead ammunition ban.
So far no organisation or individual has managed to successfully dispute the science.
Many have tried.

"How exactly have I done that?"

"You gentlemen are a cult, you know what you know and you stand firm in your beliefs. Science has nothing to teach you.
You have much in common with with the transgender movement."

Just unnecessarily provocative. Oh don't worry, I won't cry. It is just disappointing to see a marginally intelligent conversation reduced to comparing those with a sincerely held and reasoned opposing view with a movement of extremists.

To me, that is really low grade behaviour and I wouldn't expect an intelligent person to do it. Less so in a forum occupied generally by people with higher than average intelligence and valid views...even if those views do not chime with your own.

You will have no more of my time.

 

[Dunwaters]

"How exactly have I done that?"

"You gentlemen are a cult, you know what you know and you stand firm in your beliefs. Science has nothing to teach you.
You have much in common with with the transgender movement."

Just unnecessarily provocative. Oh don't worry, I won't cry. It is just disappointing to see a marginally intelligent conversation reduced to comparing those with a sincerely held and reasoned opposing view with a movement of extremists.

To me, that is really low grade behaviour and I wouldn't expect an intelligent person to do it. Less so in a forum occupied generally by people with higher than average intelligence and valid views...even if those views do not chime with your own.

You will have no more of my time.

Apologies if I caused offence, but I thought it an apt comparison given some of the regular responses to be seen in this and a host of similar threads.
Frankly the constant demands for scientific evidence, immediately followed by the outright rejection of any evidence produced gets a little wearing.

So far no one has been able to successfully argue against the science supporting a ban, not nationally and not internationally.
The US has had a lead ban for wildfowling since 1991, we, in Europe, have been under serious attack since the early 1980’s and the recent ECHA proposals and demands are driving the agenda in Europe and also informing the proposed UK ban.

So if you have any knowledge or expertise that could help to avoid a lead ban, or to reduce its likely impact, could you please contact the organisation of your choice and make your knowledge known?
Under the guise of ECHA recommendations, Europe is pursuing a near total ban and the UK CHA is following a similar trajectory.
We are in dire trouble.


Regards.

 

[Liveonce]

The delay on this is incredible. Bin the lead, move to other products.

Agree the delay is incredible and painful for the shooting industry at large.

Like many I would not like to see a total ban on lead.

It is toxic, but may be the answer is like for other food products for the government to set a maximum safe level that is allow in game meat rather than as it is now with no limit set.

Then if the game meat has too much lead it is no longer fit for human consumption and disposed of. The very public publicity of such acts would then focus the commercial shoots to go non toxic as it would be untenable to continue if the shot game does not enter the food chain.

 

[Spear Chucker]

Agree the delay is incredible and painful for the shooting industry at large.

Like many I would not like to see a total ban on lead.

It is toxic, but may be the answer is like for other food products for the government to set a maximum safe level that is allow in game meat rather than as it is now with no limit set.

Then if the game meat has too much lead it is no longer fit for human consumption and disposed of. The very public publicity of such acts would then focus the commercial shoots to go non toxic as it would be untenable to continue if the shot game does not enter the food chain.

Not a bad proposal, but I think if the set level is sensible, it would allow for the smaller shoots who were minded to keep going with lead as long as they can find lead cartridges. Personally I would far rather eat game shot with lead, chewing carefully, than have a bird full of soft iron rusting away in the meat for a week. Would it continue to rust in a freezer? I do not think the oxidisation process is especially temperature sensitive. That would put paid to keeping a stock of partridges in the freezer.
I suspect the problem would be that the testing of lead content on a bird by bird basis would be too time consuming and expensive for anyone but really big shoots with commercial markets. It would allow unscrupulous game dealers (I am not sure there are any of those ) to reject consignments without explanation because the shoots would not be able to afford money or time to challenge the decision on a rapidly degrading product.

It could also allow non commercial stalkers to keep going as they are. This is assuming the meat they shot was not being sold into the commercial food chain (for friends and family).

Personally, as the system is patently not broken, I do not see why it needs mending.

The general public in this country do not eat much game. That is not going to change when there is no lead in the bird. They do not have a flavour for it and there is no culture of people eating game in the same way as those on the continent do. Those that do eat game are aware of the risk of shot in their meat and chew carefully. The problem comes from export, which is where the majority of the big shoots' product goes. Will the EU ban the importation of meat shot with lead, or will they just ban the taking of game with lead? If the former, there is still a market. The continentals cannot get the volume of game that we can provide elsewhere other than (probably) Hungary and Spain.

An interesting conundrum. I just think the HSE, Wild justice, Packham, BASC and their new friends the WWT are making or willingly participating in a direct attack on game shooting. We are worrying about answering the questions no-one else but an anti could be bothered to ask.

 

[Whitefront]

I haven't used lead ammo in shotgun or rifle for live quarry shooting for more than five years. I don't miss it. I wouldn't go back to it. The dwindling band of obsessives who insist that shooting must take place with lead are unwittingly aiding the antis.

As for disposing of lead shot game to "friends and families", I do hope you explain to them the Food Standards Agency advice and don't try to force it on growing children or pregnant women...

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

@Spear Chucker I am happy to address actions arising from evidence and indeed those wild bird studies you quoted but I considered that we were still at the 'base point' of discussing your assertion that "lead from shot is not metabolised by humans, waterfowl or any other species following ingestion" and you felt that this study Acute effects of lead, steel, tungsten-iron, and tungsten-polymer shot administered to game-farm mallards - PubMed on shot administered to game-farm mallards was a "clinically unproven test" as regards proof that lead shot ingestion causes death in birds due to the lead shot being eroded in the gizzard, after which toxic lead salts are absorbed into blood and later deposited in the kidneys, liver, bones etc.

By way of reply I noted that perhaps it was a coincidence that it was only the ducks that were given the lead shot that died or suffered ill effects and I then suggested the following study which showed that administration of lead shot resulted in the development of green diarrhoea, anorexia and weakness. It also produced high concentrations of lead in the blood, kidney, liver and bone with lower concentrations in skeletal muscle. The major lesions were destruction of the mitotically active proventricular epithelium and medullary osteocytes, destruction of pectoral muscle cells and the presence of intranuclear inclusion bodies in the proximal tubular epithelium of the kidneys.

Pathogenesis of lead shot poisoning in the mallard duck - PubMed

Adult mallard ducks were administered steel pellets to determine the rate of excretion from the gastrointestinal tract. In separate studies the ducks were administered 5 number 6 lead pellets. Birds were examined for clinical signs and sacrificed at given intervals over a 20 day period to assess...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I think you have not yet commented on the second study. Those two studies and others from decades ago were not conducted by the WWT and demonstrate that lead shot is indeed metabolised by the bird species studies and with ill effects. Whether there is justifiable action on the wider evidence of lead shot poisoning in wild birds is another matter, but may I suggest that first we bottom out the evidence of lead shot metabolism in birds.

In your initial post you promised that "If you can produce incontrovertible science based evidence to shoot me down, I will happily concede and publicly apologise for wasting your time and being beastly. I am wrong about many things, many times a day and have no fear of admitting error."

 

[T.eddie]

Not a bad proposal, but I think if the set level is sensible, it would allow for the smaller shoots who were minded to keep going with lead as long as they can find lead cartridges. Personally I would far rather eat game shot with lead, chewing carefully, than have a bird full of soft iron rusting away in the meat for a week. Would it continue to rust in a freezer? I do not think the oxidisation process is especially temperature sensitive. That would put paid to keeping a stock of partridges in the freezer.
I suspect the problem would be that the testing of lead content on a bird by bird basis would be too time consuming and expensive for anyone but really big shoots with commercial markets. It would allow unscrupulous game dealers (I am not sure there are any of those ) to reject consignments without explanation because the shoots would not be able to afford money or time to challenge the decision on a rapidly degrading product.

It could also allow non commercial stalkers to keep going as they are. This is assuming the meat they shot was not being sold into the commercial food chain (for friends and family).

Personally, as the system is patently not broken, I do not see why it needs mending.

The general public in this country do not eat much game. That is not going to change when there is no lead in the bird. They do not have a flavour for it and there is no culture of people eating game in the same way as those on the continent do. Those that do eat game are aware of the risk of shot in their meat and chew carefully. The problem comes from export, which is where the majority of the big shoots' product goes. Will the EU ban the importation of meat shot with lead, or will they just ban the taking of game with lead? If the former, there is still a market. The continentals cannot get the volume of game that we can provide elsewhere other than (probably) Hungary and Spain.

An interesting conundrum. I just think the HSE, Wild justice, Packham, BASC and their new friends the WWT are making or willingly participating in a direct attack on game shooting. We are worrying about answering the questions no-one else but an anti could be bothered to ask.

I think the focus isn't just on humans eating it but also other wildlife. If the WHO says there is no sage limit that needs to be taken into account. The argument for microplastics which are in considerably bigger proportion compared to lead is indeed a danger (apologies it might not have been yourself that mentioned but I've just scrolled through), however what needs to be taken into consideration is that what can us as shooters influence. Plastic to an extent with the cartridge used however I would hope that most of us pick up out spent cartridge. And then lead which I don't think any of us have the ability to just go about and pick up. So then the next logical step would be, how can you reduce the lead going out

I don't believe that just because something doesn't seem a big problem, that we should knowingly accept it. Of alternatives are available why not use them if you can? I use steel almost exclusively in the shotgun when and would do so with the rifle if I could have got hold of copper at the time I bought my ammunition

Also I've duck in the freezer shot with steel that have been in since last years season, I've noticed no issues with rust in the meat when eating, so I'd imagine partridge would also be okay

 

[Dunwaters]

Ok let’s get things into perspective.

How many people have suffered from lead poisoning or died from it, or likely to die from it?
How many people have been maimed or died from car accidents?
To me the big worry is how much wildlife and how many people will be affected by the micro plastics in the environment?

So which is the greater threat to our lives?
Lead, vehicles or plastics?
Anyone have figures to show the risks, or am I more likely to win the SD monthly draw?

Nice red herring, but it has nothing to do with the discussion.
Out of order.

 

[LuckyEddie]

Nice red herring, but it has nothing to do with the discussion.
Out of order.

No it’s not!
The response should be proportional to the risk!
High risk - high response
Low risk - low response

So it’s been established that travelling at 30mph cause severe injured when accidents happen and authorities are lowering the limit to 20mph - but not banning cars which will still cause accidents and injure people.

Micro plastics are affecting a lot of flora and fauna (including humans), identified as very harmful to life and are being banned altogether.

Lead is harmful to life but given it has been used for years, out with the industries that use lead, how many people have died from lead poisoning from game or suffered ill health from it?

 

[Dunwaters]

No it’s not!
The response should be proportional to the risk!
High risk - high response
Low risk - low response

So it’s been established that travelling at 30mph cause severe injured when accidents happen and authorities are lowering the limit to 20mph - but not banning cars which will still cause accidents and injure people.

Micro plastics are affecting a lot of flora and fauna (including humans), identified as very harmful to life and are being banned altogether.

Lead is harmful to life but given it has been used for years, out with the industries that use lead, how many people have died from lead poisoning from game or suffered ill health from it?

Yes it is.
The principle reason for pursuing a ban on lead ammunition is to protect wildlife.
Not people, its not all about us.
People are being protected from lead poisoning by removing lead and lead compounds from the environment, it’s been going on for a while now.
Some wildlife is very susceptible to lead poisoning when the lead is presented as lead shot or small fragments.
The federal ban on lead ammunition for shooting wildfowl in the US was triggered by the discovery that lead poisoning was having an effect on ducks at population level.
A federal ban was imposed in 1991 and duck populations have recovered to some extent, there are other factors at play.

 

[Nickb]

The principle reason for pursuing a ban on lead ammunition is to protect wildlife.

Just ban shooting altogether then , that will save plenty wildlife


Oh no !! I've just given BASC a new concept

 

[Buchan]

It is toxic, but may be the answer is like for other food products for the government to set a maximum safe level that is allow in game meat rather than as it is now with no limit set.

There is no set level of lead deemed to be safe, not least as it can accumulate over time. There is a level of >0.05–0.10 ppm at which animals are deemed unsafe to use as food. This from the APHA site:

"An incident is recorded where the kidney or liver lead concentrations exceed 0.5 parts per million (ppm) wet matter (WM), muscle lead concentration exceeds 0.1ppm WM, bulk milk lead concentration exceeds 0.02ppm or blood lead concentration exceeds 0.48µmol/l (ppm equates to mg/kg)"

WHO gives more background on human effects: Lead poisoning

The argument that lead is needed to conduct an activity which many people find objectionable (ie killing animals as a pastime) means the shooting community needs to make this transition as soon as they can.

 

[Heym SR20]

Ok let’s get things into perspective.

How many people have suffered from lead poisoning or died from it, or likely to die from it?
How many people have been maimed or died from car accidents?
To me the big worry is how much wildlife and how many people will be affected by the micro plastics in the environment?

So which is the greater threat to our lives?
Lead, vehicles or plastics?
Anyone have figures to show the risks, or am I more likely to win the SD monthly draw?

There is a very strong correlation between those nasty agressive cancers such as acute myeloid leukaemia and small cell lung cancer and raised levels of lead in the blood.

Lead in food, especially lead shot game can be a major source of lead in the body. There are a number studies showing elevated levels lead in the blood amongst those who eat a lot of lead shot meat. Mostly these studies are on native Americans.

Micro plastics are also a worry and need to be tackled - but that is a separate and completely different argument.

 

[sikastag270]

tell me one thing that is not toxic in large amounts

 

[Liveonce]

There is no set level of lead deemed to be safe, not least as it can accumulate over time. There is a level of >0.05–0.10 ppm at which animals are deemed unsafe to use as food. This from the APHA site:

"An incident is recorded where the kidney or liver lead concentrations exceed 0.5 parts per million (ppm) wet matter (WM), muscle lead concentration exceeds 0.1ppm WM, bulk milk lead concentration exceeds 0.02ppm or blood lead concentration exceeds 0.48µmol/l (ppm equates to mg/kg)"

WHO gives more background on human effects: Lead poisoning

The argument that lead is needed to conduct an activity which many people find objectionable (ie killing animals as a pastime) means the shooting community needs to make this transition as soon as they can.

Is it actually possible to have zero lead in all food? as lots of food look to contain lead like, wine, chilli powder for example. if 0.1mg/kg ww is the maximum considered safe limit for other meat, pork, chicken etc then why not game meat also?

 

[Spear Chucker]

Just ban shooting altogether then , that will save plenty wildlife


Oh no !! I've just given BASC a new concept

Cripes! Now we're done for! "Don't tell'em your name Pike" I did giggle

 

[Spear Chucker]

There is no set level of lead deemed to be safe, not least as it can accumulate over time. There is a level of >0.05–0.10 ppm at which animals are deemed unsafe to use as food. This from the APHA site:

"An incident is recorded where the kidney or liver lead concentrations exceed 0.5 parts per million (ppm) wet matter (WM), muscle lead concentration exceeds 0.1ppm WM, bulk milk lead concentration exceeds 0.02ppm or blood lead concentration exceeds 0.48µmol/l (ppm equates to mg/kg)"

WHO gives more background on human effects: Lead poisoning

The argument that lead is needed to conduct an activity which many people find objectionable (ie killing animals as a pastime) means the shooting community needs to make this transition as soon as they can.

The public don't care about lead or non lead. I think the public have no problem with the control of deer so long as it is done efficiently and they don't have to see it. BASC and others are just running scared from a vocal minority they assume is the general public.

 

[Spear Chucker]

@Spear Chucker I am happy to address actions arising from evidence and indeed those wild bird studies you quoted but I considered that we were still at the 'base point' of discussing your assertion that "lead from shot is not metabolised by humans, waterfowl or any other species following ingestion" and you felt that this study Acute effects of lead, steel, tungsten-iron, and tungsten-polymer shot administered to game-farm mallards - PubMed on shot administered to game-farm mallards was a "clinically unproven test" as regards proof that lead shot ingestion causes death in birds due to the lead shot being eroded in the gizzard, after which toxic lead salts are absorbed into blood and later deposited in the kidneys, liver, bones etc.

By way of reply I noted that perhaps it was a coincidence that it was only the ducks that were given the lead shot that died or suffered ill effects and I then suggested the following study which showed that administration of lead shot resulted in the development of green diarrhoea, anorexia and weakness. It also produced high concentrations of lead in the blood, kidney, liver and bone with lower concentrations in skeletal muscle. The major lesions were destruction of the mitotically active proventricular epithelium and medullary osteocytes, destruction of pectoral muscle cells and the presence of intranuclear inclusion bodies in the proximal tubular epithelium of the kidneys.

Pathogenesis of lead shot poisoning in the mallard duck - PubMed

Adult mallard ducks were administered steel pellets to determine the rate of excretion from the gastrointestinal tract. In separate studies the ducks were administered 5 number 6 lead pellets. Birds were examined for clinical signs and sacrificed at given intervals over a 20 day period to assess...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I think you have not yet commented on the second study. Those two studies and others from decades ago were not conducted by the WWT and demonstrate that lead shot is indeed metabolised by the bird species studies and with ill effects. Whether there is justifiable action on the wider evidence of lead shot poisoning in wild birds is another matter, but may I suggest that first we bottom out the evidence of lead shot metabolism in birds.

In your initial post you promised that "If you can produce incontrovertible science based evidence to shoot me down, I will happily concede and publicly apologise for wasting your time and being beastly. I am wrong about many things, many times a day and have no fear of admitting error."

Conor, thanks for yours. I am afraid that all you and I have proven so far is that we are adept at finding supportive articles on the internet and very clever at cutting and pasting. We should congratulate ourselves thus far. I will admit that the results of the reports you have found are compelling in terms of results gained from artificially conducted tests in respect of lead poisoning. If you chain me to a wall and poke biscuits down my throat, there is a reasonable chance that I will begin to suffer ill effects. In a natural scenario, that is not likely to happen in spite of the abundance of biscuits in my natural habitat. Ducks are no fools and like me, while they may well swallow the odd one, but their diet is not completely comprised of lead shot.

What you have not done is show me incontrovertible proof that waterfowl in the wild are dying in their thousands as a result of the ingestion of spent lead shot and that a ban on lead shot is necessary. Where are these piles of corpses? I spend a fair amount of time in wetlands and frankly, I do not see them. Maybe my eyes are failing quicker than I thought. People found plenty of gulls during the AI events, but so far, nobody is telling us that ducks are dying in droves as a result of the ingestion of metallic lead shot.

What we need is a shooting organisation to commission a full and independent study on birds in the wild using the full suite of agreed testing methodologies, including Lead Isotope Spectrometry to accurately identify the source of lead poisoning -if there is such evidence in wild birds of such poisoning. You and your friends at WWT seem completely opposed to conducting a test of this sort and and I think I am beginning to understand why. You don't think it will support your case for the sell out BASC, The GCWT and the Countryside Alliance are currently cooking up. I know! Why don't the GCWT, CA and BASC pool resources and do the study, instead of piggybacking off a report written for a group of antis? Wow! Who'd have thought of that? I am Sir, a true and verified copper-bottomed genius, disguised as an ignorant peasant.

Why so evasive on this subject Conor? What are you and your friends at Wild Justice, The WWT, RSPB, Raptor Rescue etc afraid of?

As I said before, show me the proof and I will back down, gladly and with good grace. You are going to have to work for it old son and so far I see no sweat on your brow. In wildfowling terms, there is a tonne of lead in the air but you haven't even tickled me yet.

Ultimately Conor, at the bottom of this is the disgusting and filthy truth. BASC and the people we should have expected to defend us have jumped into bed with the antis and sold us out. I vomit.

 

[Buchan]

The public don't care about lead or non lead. I think the public have no problem with the control of deer so long as it is done efficiently and they don't have to see it. BASC and others are just running scared from a vocal minority they assume is the general public.

The public do care, because the government - the representatives of the public - care. The public also knew why lead was removed from petrol.
It's toxic, there are alternatives. People should adapt to them

 

[Spear Chucker]

The public do care, because the government - the representatives of the public - care. The public also knew why lead was removed from petrol.
It's toxic, there are alternatives. People should adapt to them

Interesting that HMG -those redoubtable representatives of the public- are doing nothing at all about the water companies who are busy polluting our rivers (a topic a broad majority of the people really do care about) with raw sewage. That really is dangerous. Anyway, I am so glad that they have their priorities right.