This study (which can’t really be that pioneering) is greatly to be welcomed, and indeed is overdue. Some would say, long overdue. See here for details. Blood lead levels in children will be examined in Leeds – apparently a lead hotspot. It’s a shame that the study isn’t a bit more rural in scope and…
Category: Lead
Good news on lead ammunition
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Yesterday’s news that a ban (almost total) on lead ammunition use is coming is welcome. Assuming that it all goes smoothly (I believe it will) then it will bring to a happy conclusion decades of campaigning. But why has it taken so long? So very long? Lead is a poison and it has gradually been…
Toxic lead in unsustainable Red Grouse
There are many reasons for signing the petition to ban driven grouse shooting – click here – and this study provides two more reasons at different levels. The study looks at Red Grouse carcasses bought on the open market which were intended for human consumption and found that all 78 carcasses contained lead shot and…
Illegal use of lead ammunition to shoot Mallards continues
This paper looks at lead pellets retrieved from shot Mallards in the 2020/21 shooting season at a time long after the use of lead ammunition to shoot ducks was made illegal in England (similar but slightly different rules apply in other UK nations). Most Mallards in the study were shot with lead ie they were…
Shotswitch – not much switching after 4 years
The annual examination of the claims made by the shooting industry over their good faith in removing lead shot from their hobby through voluntary means by 2025 are given their annual fact check – click here for paper just published. But it is summed up perfectly by this graph: Lead shot was found in 93%…
Poor response from Rebecca Pow – the Minister ‘responsible’
The Westminster government is a busted flush – it does not do the big things right and cannot even do the small things. I wrote to my MP, Tom Pursglove, on 19 January – click here – to enquire about lack of progress by government on five straightforward matters on which simple government action is…
My personal response to the HSE lead ammunition consultation
A live public consultation by the Health and Safety Executive on the future of lead ammunition is in play until 23:59 on Sunday 10 December. This should see the end of the use, sale and availability of lead shot and lead bullets for shooting at live quarry – also known as live animals. Such regulation…
Guest blog – Lead ammunition, the way forward by John Swift
Mark writes: John Swift is the former boss of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and from 2010 chaired the Lead Ammunition Group set up by the last Labour government which reported to government in 2015 and which was treated so shabbily by the outgoing Secretary of State for Environment, a certain Liz Truss,…
WWT and RSPB call out failed shooting organisations, and government, on lead ammunition (at last)
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WWT and RSPB have written an open letter to ‘shooting organisations’ (BASC, BGA, CA, CLA, GWCT, MA, NGO, SACS, SLE – but apparently not SGO) calling for them to join in a call for a statutory end to the use and sale of lead shotgun ammunition. The letter has two fine jokes in it where…
Farming Today on lead
Farming Today had a chat about lead ammunition this morning (7 minutes into the programme). Readers of this blog won’t have learned anything much (the research mentioned was covered here on 26 February, and Tuesday’s government announcement was covered on Tuesday) but in less than a month’s time this blog won’t be bringing you the…