Tag: lead shot

European Parliament votes to ban lead ammunition

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On the 25th of November the European Parliament voted to ban the use of lead ammunition in wetlands across the EU. 362 MEPs voted in favour of the ban, 292 against, and 39 abstained. As we’ve written a number of times on this site (see – Shooting and Lead Shot), lead has been used in ammunition and fishing tackle for decades, despite all concerned knowing the terrible impact it has on wildlife, the environment, and humans. Lead is a serious pollutant. It’s dangerous – even Roman physicians knew that. Due to its high toxicity and the public and environmental health problems it causes, most releases of lead into the environment are strictly regulated in Europe (e.g. see AMEC 2012). In the UK lead was finally fully banned from vehicle fuel in 2000, removed from paint in 1992, and its use in water pipes before that. However, shooting still sprays tens of thousands of tonnes of lead across fields, moorlands, and woodlands, contaminating soil and water and besides putting at risk the health of wild birds also risks the health of people (their concerns brushed aside by disingenuous lobbyists and advertisers) that eat fragments of shot in their food.

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Shooting industry plumbs the depths

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Last week the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust posted a rather sober press-release about the EU’s ‘Historic vote to ban lead shot in wetlands’. The decision needs to be ratified by the EU Council, but the EU vote was, WWT said, choosing ‘health over poison’. Even hunters supported the move according to WWT. And why wouldn’t they, it’s an easy-win for them. Which brings us to Natural England’s favourite pro-shooting lobby group BASC…who have announced that they will in fact stand ‘against new EU restrictions on lead shot’…

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WWT | Historic vote to ban lead shot in wetlands

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WWT has just announced that “EU countries choose health over poison in historic vote to ban lead shot in wetlands”. It’s important news – as WWT unequivocally puts it “A huge leap towards ending the suffering of millions of waterbirds from lead poisoning has been taken following a momentous vote to ban lead shot in and around wetlands” – and the shooting industry only has itself to blame. From an easy win they could have claimed years ago, as ever they appear to have been forced into falling into line with doing something ‘good for the environment’…

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Killing wildfowl banned on Humber Estuary

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The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the shooting industry is up in arms because the slaughter of wildfowl has been banned on one of the most important wetland sites in the UK – the Humber Estuary, the second largest coastal plain estuary in the UK, a Special Area of Conservation, a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the Habitats Regulations and considered an internationally important wetland under the Ramsar Convention. Still, how very dare they! Protect wildlife in areas specifically designated to protect wildlife? What is the world coming too…splutters no-one but a ‘wildfowler’

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Shooting and lead shot

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There has been a ripple of news around a ‘decision’ that the shooting industry is planning to ban the use of lead shot. Well, ‘ban’ as in spending another five years of polluting the environment with a toxic product, poisoning waterbirds that pick up lead shot thinking it’s grit (many birds swallow grit to help grind fibrous food material in their gizzards), and ignoring the inconvenient fact that non-toxic alternatives exist and are widely used. However, Charlie Moores writes, we’ve been here before – and is this the issue we should be most concerned about anyway?

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