Do you look forward to, or dread, reading your new emails? I’m quite keen on mine, partly because, just occasionally, I get one like this: As a farmer I have often been a bit sensitive to your opinions, but at least I now know you allow that some of us are the good guys!…
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Northern Ireland
I visited Northern Ireland yesterday to speak at a BTO conference there. It was a long day (alarm went off at 0430, got home again 2220) but a very enjoyable one. The welcome is always very warm in Ireland, whichever side of the border you are on, and that was true yesterday with a mixture…
Thoughts on Inglorious from Ronnie Graham
Mark writes: below you’ll find a long series of comments on Inglorious by Ronnie Graham (of whom I know, but who don’t know personally). I thought you might find it interesting because Ronnie is interesting – a shooter and a raptor worker. His comments are reproduced in whole below and my comments (which I have…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (6)
Here is a video of a duck showing the typical signs of lead poisoning – this is avoidable, so let’s avoid it. Sign Rob Sheldon’s e-petition to ban lead ammunition.
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (5)
No maximum lead levels are set for game meat sold for human consumption in the UK so there is no protection for the consumer through food regulations. The easiest solution is to ban the use of lead ammunition. Tests have shown that lead levels in game meat (eg partridges, grouse, pheasant) on sale in UK…
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (4)
It has been illegal to use lead ammunition to shoot wildfowl (in England) since 1999 but shooters are regularly breaking the law. In 2010 (10 years after a ban on lead ammunition for shooting wildfowl) a test of compliance showed that 70% of ducks available for sale for human consumption contained lead ammunition. This should…
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (3)
From the findings of the Lead Ammunition Group: 10,000 children are growing up in households where they could regularly be eating sufficient game shot with lead ammunition to cause them neurodevelopmental harm and other health impairments. Gamekeepers’ families will presumably be at highest risk – and yet the shooting organisations have opposed any restraints…
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (2)
Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of waterfowl die from lead poisoning in the UK every year. Spent lead shot – the bits that missed their target, accumulate in the environment and are ingested from the sediments of lakes and rivers by ducks searching for food. The lead pellets accumulate in the birds’ gizzards…
Six reasons to ban lead ammunition (1)
The Danes banned all lead ammunition (even for their Olympic shooting team) almost 20 years ago – in 1996. It’s not a new thing, or a radical thing, it’s a sensible thing because lead poisons waterfowl, is a poison in game meat shot with lead, and non-toxic alternatives exist. The Danes didn’t stop shooting in…