Anti-lead Propaganda Rebuttal

Harry mac

Well-Known Member
Can anyone tell me if any of our shooting/conservation associations doing any work to activley oppose proposed anti-lead legislation?
The organisations that are in favour of eliminating all lead ammunition are very fond of citing elevated lead levels in hunters' blood samples and those of their families; and of showing x-rays of shot carcasses exhibiting wide-spread lead/metal fragments.
Is there anyone out there pointing out that elevated lead levels are not the same as dangerous lead levels, and shouting out from the roof tops that no one has yet died from lead poisoning as a result of eating shot game? In fact, I very much doubt anyone has even fallen ill from it.
When it comes to these often shown x-rays, we need to start showing our own series of x-rays proving that as the carcass goes through the various processes on its way to becoming meat the number of fragments in evidence gets less and less at every step.
At least initially, a donor fallow or red carcass could be culled out from a deer farm/par herd.
Can we get pro-active on this, instead of constantly fighting off the back foot, as we seem to be doing?
 
never seen any of """ a man died of lead shoot or gone mad due to eating birds""" that have been shot with lead!! but we as shooters don't help buy over stretching at birds and not killing them so its a no win unless we look closer to home first ,steel is **** lead is king but ha ho what do we know :doh:
 
I once asked whether there was any relation to the levels of lead in blood, dependant on where you live and water source, in a lot of areas lead piping is still common, water company's put additives in the water to counter act this, but as the tested hunters tend to live in the more rural areas , there would be a higher chance of lead in the blood.
this is only my I can,t read or write , but I can drive a tractor logic, but the person concerned could not answer my question.
 
Interesting to bring this up now. I've just had by wife's brother-in-law and family for Christmas, he works as an environmentalist for one of our leading store/supermarkets. His view on lead was so biased and ridiculously flawed it beggars belief but in his view we should all be dead (from lead poisoning!). Apparently the shooting community need to stop poisoning the countryside and clean up their act!

Now he is a political animal and it matters not whether he tells the truth but said enough times his lie will become the truth!

So maybe he is right and the shooting community and shooting organisations do need to clean up their act and start shouting the truth from the rooftops, but louder.
 
My mum still has lead water pipes part of the way between the mains and taps in her house and I have been using air rifle pellets for 30years.
Due to work issues I recently had to be tested for lead - results came back with below normal trace mounts in my system so in other words a clean bill of health.
So shooting or using lead ammunition is not an issue, for me at least.

Ed
 
funny to read this,
we have a farmer that will not let anyone shoot the flying rats over his peas as the supermarket will not buy them if they have been shot over in case lead shot is found at the point of processing them :-| thought that was what processing plant was for to remove all unwanted bugs and bits before bagging them !!! what would the world do without the big super markets telling the farmers what to do and pay them in pence for doing it !!!



Interesting to bring this up now. I've just had by wife's brother-in-law and family for Christmas, he works as an environmentalist for one of our leading store/supermarkets. His view on lead was so biased and ridiculously flawed it beggars belief but in his view we should all be dead (from lead poisoning!). Apparently the shooting community need to stop poisoning the countryside and clean up their act!

Now he is a political animal and it matters not whether he tells the truth but said enough times his lie will become the truth!

So maybe he is right and the shooting community and shooting organisations do need to clean up their act and start shouting the truth from the rooftops, but louder.
 
funny to read this,
we have a farmer that will not let anyone shoot the flying rats over his peas as the supermarket will not buy them if they have been shot over in case lead shot is found at the point of processing them :-| thought that was what processing plant was for to remove all unwanted bugs and bits before bagging them !!! what would the world do without the big super markets telling the farmers what to do and pay them in pence for doing it !!!

Yes, the whole issue is flawed, misunderstood with anti bias.
Strangely the farm company where I carry out deer management just had some cabbages refused because of lead shot found in "them" - realistically I'm not sure it was more than a couple! Anyway when I was invited on a shoot day I didn't notice anyone getting too worried about where our shot landed!
 
All this nonsense really does make my blood boil. There is a difference between different metals and the form that they are presented to the animal. All metals (lead, copper, bismuth, etc) can be toxic but need to be presented to the animal in a form that can be absorbed across the gut wall and into the blood stream. Lumps of metal (shot) are pretty inert and will pass through the gut. Water pipes were made of lead, then copper because these metals are inert, I.e. Have no biochemical effect. Birds can pick up the shot and hold it in thier crop and potentially generate conditions where the solid metal (shot) dissolves into solution (the levels would be microscopic). There has always been a worry about lead and historically it was quite prevalent as soluble lead salts (inorganic form) with paints being the commonest form (often found in children's toys). Latterly organic lead compounds (petrol anti knock) were identified as a risk to health. These are all forms of lead that can be absorbed into the blood stream.
An interesting example would be the best way for expecting mothers to increase thier iron intake. Iron shot was not prescribed - Guinness was recommended.
Unfortunately the doomsayers are not able to rationalise the actual chemistry & biochemistry, or risk. They no doubt smoke and drink which are far more toxic.
Eco warriors and antis are able to simply point at the historical evidence (like comparing apples with pears) and use this to hide thier own long term aim.
The retailer issue really is a sign of the times. We all want to be able to complain and get our money back. A piece of grit or caterpillar is a sign of where the food comes from but the majority are so distant from real food & risk that they have no understanding. The retailer simply propagates this by offering a no quibbles money back guarantee - we all pay for this in the end as they charge the supplier a £50 admin fee for the pleasure.
Offering to use steel when shooting such fields would actually be a solution as the bird ***** contains salmonella which is expensive to detect and could cause a full product withdrawal (expensive to the farmer) compared to steel shot which is easily detected by industry metal detectors (steel is easier to detect than lead).
 
If anyone has the use of an x-ray machine in the East Anglia area I'm willing to supply a roe or muntjac carcass that we could do this to.
 
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