Interesting move

Mark 16 Comments

Shooting organisations are clearly rattled by the campaign that has been building to remove lead from the environment (a subject oft-mentioned in this blog see here, here, here, here, here for example and the subject of a Guest Blog by the BASC Comms Director, Christopher Graffius).

Complying with the law as it stands is going to be a major feature of the upcoming CLA Game Fair and a range of shooting organisations have just launched a website urging legal compliance across the shooting community.

This website is to be welcomed – and I welcome it.  Clearly these organisations have left it until a bit late in the day to get their acts together but much better late than never.

Let’s be clear, the shooting organisations are simply asking their members and other shooters to comply with the existing law that bans lead ammunition being used to shoot wildfowl in England (it varies a bit in different parts of the UK).  They are asking shooters to be legal.

We know that this law is flouted routinely because 73% of shot duck contain lead shot and that percentage should be 0%.

Thousands of people are pledging to stick to the law – over 4500 so far in the early days of this website.

The website is right in many respects – to point out that the solution to this problem is entirely in the hands of the people who wield the guns and that monitoring compliance is easy so there is nowhere for shooters to hide.  It is also right to suggest that non-compliance makes it easier for people to push for more regulations and restrictions on shooting – it most certainly does.

When thousands more people have pledged to stick to the law, on this website and at the Game Fair later this month, will that be enough?  Well, I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  How much will the incidence of illegally shot wildfowl decrease as a result of this initiative, I wonder?  I think we should find out over the coming winter and I hope that WWT and others will plan to do the necessary monitoring – funded by the Countryside Alliance, BASC, GWCT, the NGO and all the other organisations listed on this website.

The shooting organisations have tried to keep this issue in the long grass for as long as possible but with this welcome initiative of theirs it is time to get the mower out so there is nowhere to hide.  I’d say that if the incidence of illegally shot wildfowl does not decline to below 10% this winter then Government should move to ban the sale of lead shot as quickly as possible because it would be clear evidence that the shooting organisations can’t influence their members.

Such a ban would have impacts on shooting of species other than wildfowl – for example pigeons, rabbits, pheasants, grouse and partridges – but we already have evidence that the lead levels in these species when they are sold for human consumption are high enough to concern those in charge of food safety.  There are good alternatives to lead shot and shooters should have made far more progress over recent years in moving towards them.  However, trying harder to persuade people to stick to a 10-year-old law is a start.

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16 Replies to “Interesting move”

  1. If we ever doubted the sheer viciousness of lead in the environment, surely the finding that removal of lead from petrol is probably the single most important factor responsible for a dramatic decline in violent crime should be enough to seal the deal.

  3. “..surely the finding that removal of lead from petrol is probably the single most important factor responsible for a dramatic decline in violent crime..”

    I take it that you can provide solid scientific evidence for this claim. What are your sources?

    “They keep a packet of steel shot in their pocket so if challenged they can deny they are using lead.”

    I have been using non-toxic shot for wildfowl for the last 14 years and so does every member of my local wildfowling club. Our lease depends upon it. The next time you meet the ‘Someone I know who hunts..’, you can tell him that from me.

  4. The ‘Today’ programme is unavailable but George Monbiot’s article in the Guardian is still there. No chance of hokum posing as science from him, then 🙂

    1. Gethin – it was, as I recall, a properly published scientific paper. The fact that you missed it doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. Unfortunately, the BASC, GWCT, CLA, CA and NGO websites are poor sources of information on the impacts of lead on people and wildlife. Funnily enough, Shooting Times and The Field are no better either.

      1. A while ago, Mark, I raised with you an error that you made in your blog when reporting a scientific paper on lead levels. You subsequently corrected the information after I pointed out your mistake. I assume therefore that your blog is a similarly poor source of reliable information on the impacts of lead on people and wildlife?

        Alastair Balmain, Editor, Shooting Times.

        1. Alastair – you did do that and I did correct my error. We all make errors sometimes – I make lots – and it is the speed of correction that is then important. You may be confusing my blog with the websites of BASC and the Countryside Alliance who made gross and palpable errors on lead which were pointed out to them by me and they didn’t correct them. And then the FSA Chief Scientist described the claim that ‘weight for weight chocolate has more lead than game’ as having ‘absolutely no justification’ (ref https://markavery.info/2012/11/12/basc-cla-choc/). BASC have taken down their press release but the CA website is still in error after about 8 months.

    2. Gethin,

      The Mother Jones article is based on the findings of the following scientific papers:

      http://pic.plover.com/Nevin/Nevin2007.pdf
      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412012000566
      http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097

      Regarding George Monbiot and hokum. Perhaps you are confusing him with David Bellamy (former patron of the Moorland Association). If you want to see what hokum looks like, then see DB in action on YouTube:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eOFYAg_DPw

    3. Saint George would never stoop so low.
      However, if there is a causal link between a lack of new lead in the environment and a decline in violent crime maybe it is additive with the increase in the easinessness of non-violent crime afforded by the rise of the Evilnet, on-line fraud and other elecatric blagging around the same point in time in the mid-1990s.

  5. Sort of the right step, I mean at least when a gamekeeper takes aim at a raptor at least we can breathe a sigh of relief no lead residue will be left behind!!!
    When I see a website urging gamekeepers to comply with the law in regards to raptors then things are heading in the right direction as far as I’m concerned too little too late and now I believe Gulls in Lancashire (Bae systems) are the next target for the nations elected gamekeeper aka Owen Patterson

  6. “We must comply with the law – or lose lead…”

    “There is a concerted campaign to achieve a total ban on lead shot. It is directed by powerful organisations with considerable financial and political resources.”

    Nuff said…

  7. I have always wanted to visit the game fair so had a look at the website. Working my way through I clicked on Travel Advice, thinking it would tell me how to get there. The only option that gave me was helicopter assistance!

  8. “….Gulls in Lancashire (Bae systems) are the next target…”

    Ah, yes. The ‘endangered’ Herring and Lesser black back gulls.

    I’m sure Mark gan provide the figures of how many Herring and LBBG the RSPB has controlled over the years.

    I was an RSPB member for 30 odd years but it’s tosh like this, which has nothing at all to do with conservation, which made me stop my annual subscription.

    Have a listen to Iolo Williams and ask yourself what are you really doing for conservation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnJQjtvngqA

  10. Is there any other “sport” in Britain where “sportsmen” break the current laws on such a scale? It’s no wonder that shooting is considered a sport of the chinless toffs who display arrogance to operate outside of laws seemingly designed for the general riff-raff.

    There is a great opportunity here for such organisations to clean up their act and operate less divisively. I guess we don’t take well to change but some elements take less well than others.

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