Steel shot being ingested

[jall55]

Chaps - just having the conversation with Conor from BASC - herein copied on another forum

How do we know that if we swap to steel or tungsten shot its better than lead and wont kill ducks too or other birds too ?

Has anyone any actual evidence ?

Conor has sent me a few articles that i wonder if he could share on here too ?

I wonder if falconers have any experience /thoughts ?

Does steel shot simply not build up in the gizzard eventually starving the bird ?

I dont want to jump out of the lead fire into an inferno if that makes sense

@Conor O'Gorman

@Buchan

I wonder if you have any thoughts Buchan ?

One report also says 80 odd percent of tungsten ingested is absorbed - are we saying thats ok then ?

Thanks

 

[VSS]

Chaps - just having the conversation with Conor from BASC - herein copied on another forum

How do we know that if we swap to steel or tungsten shot its better than lead and wont kill ducks too or other birds too ?

Has anyone any actual evidence ?

Conor has sent me a few articles that i wonder if he could share on here too ?

I wonder if falconers have any experience /thoughts ?

Does steel shot simply not build up in the gizzard eventually starving the bird ?

I dont want to jump out of the lead fire into an inferno if that makes sense

@Conor O'Gorman

@Buchan

I wonder if you have any thoughts Buchan ?

One report also says 80 odd percent of tungsten ingested is absorbed - are we saying thats ok then ?

Thanks

Steel shot in the gizzard would be no different from the small stones and grit that are an essential part of the contents of the gizzard, I don't think. Why do you suppose it could build up and starve the bird?
The well documented problem with lead shot in the gizzard is that lead is soft, so gets ground down by the grit, and is therefore more absorbable in the form of very small particles.

 

[jall55]

Steel shot in the gizzard would be no different from the small stones and grit that are an essential part of the contents of the gizzard, I don't think. Why do you suppose it could build up and starve the bird?
The well documented problem with lead shot in the gizzard is that lead is soft, so gets ground down by the grit, and is therefore more absorbable in the form of very small particles.

Thanks Tim
I was just thinking that if steel does not break down - will it not eventually fill the gizzard or do you think the bird will simply not need to take in any further "grit" as its full - i thought birds picked stones grit to get minerals and things too - so where i say starve i perhaps mean - will they not be starved of nutrients

I wonder then about tungsten ?

 

[Bowland blades]

Chaps - just having the conversation with Conor from BASC - herein copied on another forum

How do we know that if we swap to steel or tungsten shot its better than lead and wont kill ducks too or other birds too ?

Has anyone any actual evidence ?

Conor has sent me a few articles that i wonder if he could share on here too ?

I wonder if falconers have any experience /thoughts ?

Does steel shot simply not build up in the gizzard eventually starving the bird ?

I dont want to jump out of the lead fire into an inferno if that makes sense

@Conor O'Gorman

@Buchan

I wonder if you have any thoughts Buchan ?

One report also says 80 odd percent of tungsten ingested is absorbed - are we saying thats ok then ?

Thanks

The steel shot is actually soft iron , worst of it is its harder than our teeth and biting dowbn on it can chip or break a tooth . It wont harm waterfowl and other birds that take it in as grit into the gizzard - but lead taken in as grit will kill that the bird. Tungsten ? not a clue but its harder than steel shot and used in smaller sizes so your more likely to miss one preping birds . Because iron shows up well in detectors and is larger for given weight risks can be mitigated

 

[One on top of two]

Thanks Tim
I was just thinking that if steel does not break down - will it not eventually fill the gizzard or do you think the bird will simply not need to take in any further "grit" as its full - i thought birds picked stones grit to get minerals and things too - so where i say starve i perhaps mean - will they not be starved of nutrients

I wonder then about tungsten ?

The gizzard is for the want of a better word , grinding there food up , pigeons will grit after eating grain as do other birds as do some fish .

 

[timbrayford]

Apart from laboratory experiments has anyone ever found lead shot in a game bird gizzard that wasn't directly related to it being hunted.

 

[Nickb]

Apart from laboratory experiments has anyone ever found lead shot in a game bird gizzard that wasn't directly related to it being hunted.

Doubt it

 

[jall55]

The gizzard is for the want of a better word , grinding there food up , pigeons will grit after eating grain as do other birds as do some fish .

Thanks mate - yes thats right - but what i mean is and im making a hash of it is

If a gizzard fills with lead - the lead breaks down into the blood and kills the bird

Steel however wont break down - so simply has nowhere to go - so sits either forever in the gizzard or some of that is broken down and absorbed too ?
'
If it sits in then gizzard - is the gizzard now not "full" and the bird will not take in minerals etc from stones / grit etc ?

If its broken down will that not kill the bird also ?

 

[Dunwaters]

Apart from laboratory experiments has anyone ever found lead shot in a game bird gizzard that wasn't directly related to it being hunted.

No, virtually every single time a bird is detected as having lead in its gizzard, it is down to hunting and hunters because we are the only ones who routinely distribute lead in the form of small shot.
It doesn’t occur naturally and no one else uses distributes it into the environment.

 

[Dunwaters]

Thanks mate - yes thats right - but what i mean is and im making a hash of it is

If a gizzard fills with lead - the lead breaks down into the blood and kills the bird

Steel however wont break down - so simply has nowhere to go - so sits either forever in the gizzard or some of that is broken down and absorbed too ?
'
If it sits in then gizzard - is the gizzard now not "full" and the bird will not take in minerals etc from stones / grit etc ?

If its broken down will that not kill the bird also ?

The purpose of the gizzard is to replace teeth and grind the food up into a digestible form.
If the gizzard fills up with grinding medium, maybe it will affect the bird’s ability to absorb nutrition, but I’m not aware of any instances where this has happened.
No one so far has linked steel or bismuth shot with problems related to shot ingestion.

 

[jall55]

The purpose of the gizzard is to replace teeth and grind the food up into a digestible form.
If the gizzard fills up with grinding medium, maybe it will affect the bird’s ability to absorb nutrition, but I’m not aware of any instances where this has happened.
No one so far has linked steel or bismuth shot with problems related to shot ingestion.

Yes i asked Conor that but he is not sure if studies have been done - in humans tungsten can cause strokes and all sorts - so i was wondering if tungsten does not kill the bird but gets into its blood stream and then its organs and muscles and then is eaten is this potentially worse than lead ?

 

[VSS]

Yes i asked Conor that but he is not sure if studies have been done - in humans tungsten can cause strokes and all sorts - so i was wondering if tungsten does not kill the bird but gets into its blood stream and then its organs and muscles and then is eaten is this potentially worse than lead ?

That is a fair question.

 

[JTO]

Never hurts to ask questions, no matter how awkward they may be.

 

[Dunwaters]

Yes i asked Conor that but he is not sure if studies have been done - in humans tungsten can cause strokes and all sorts - so i was wondering if tungsten does not kill the bird but gets into its blood stream and then its organs and muscles and then is eaten is this potentially worse than lead ?

You make a fair point, while I can’t quote any studies proving or disproving the hazards of steel, tungsten or bismuth, I d be fairly confident that if there were any, falconers would have found it by now and so would FACE and BASC.
I remember reading an article ( Bob Brister?) waaayyy back in the early 80’s about a steel vs lead comparison run by Olin.
Steel shot started to appear in duck gizzard’s within 48 hours of the first test shoots.
Regardless of what type of shot you use, it does seem that mallard are very good at finding it.

 

[jall55]

You make a fair point, while I can’t quote any studies proving or disproving the hazards of steel, tungsten or bismuth, I d be fairly confident that if there were any, falconers would have found it by now and so would FACE and BASC.
I remember reading an article ( Bob Brister?) waaayyy back in the early 80’s about a steel vs lead comparison run by Olin.
Steel shot started to appear in duck gizzard’s within 48 hours of the first test shoots.
Regardless of what type of shot you use, it does seem that mallard are very good at finding it.

BASC sent m the studies and the ones shared were only conducted for 30 days - which just seems odd

Im just looking at transitioning the whole shoot you see from lead but i dont want to find myself causing massive welfare issues for things further down the line

 

[Stumpy2]

I’d be more concerned about having an MRI scan after mistakenly consuming a piece of steel shot…

Hopefully I don’t need an MRI scan any time soon

 

[Bowland blades]

You make a fair point, while I can’t quote any studies proving or disproving the hazards of steel, tungsten or bismuth, I d be fairly confident that if there were any, falconers would have found it by now and so would FACE and BASC.
I remember reading an article ( Bob Brister?) waaayyy back in the early 80’s about a steel vs lead comparison run by Olin.
Steel shot started to appear in duck gizzard’s within 48 hours of the first test shoots.
Regardless of what type of shot you use, it does seem that mallard are very good at finding it.

They gather is for grit , which is needed for the gizzard to work so yeah the dabbling ducks are programmed to find it

 

[Liveonce]

I wonder then about tungsten ?

Given the price of tungsten cartridges, think little tungsten shot will end up in the country side avaible for birds to find, worry more about your teeth.

 

[Bowland blades]

Given the price of tungsten cartridges, think little tungsten shot will end up in the country side avaible for birds to find, worry more about your teeth.

Std steel shot is bad enough , its changed the way i serve game ! I also use larger pellet sizes but that's just not about teeth but it comes into it for sure .

 

[JTO]

Im just looking at transitioning the whole shoot you see from lead but i dont want to find myself causing massive welfare issues for things further down the line

At the BASC wildfowling conference in Cheltenham, the Government speaker, who said lead would be banned no matter what BASC members thought, said that the RSPCA might be concerned about excessive wounding with steel shot as opposed to clean kills with lead shot.