Group instrumental in establishing a phased ban on the sale and use of lead ammunition in England, Scotland and Wales is set to be honoured by the charity. The Lead Ammunition Collective will be honoured with the RSPB’s most prestigious award at the charity’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) taking place online today (3rd October), recognising…
Category: LEAD AMMUNITION
Lead in Leeds children
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…
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…
RSPB reaction (and mine) to Keir Starmer’s speech
In response to the Prime Minister’s ‘Plan for Change’ speech, the RSPB Chief Executive, Beccy Speight, said: ‘Deeply worrying rhetoric in the PM’s speech today, singling out regulators as naysayers when they can often be an under-resourced and desperately-needed defence, holding the line on protecting our natural world. The UK needs homes, renewable energy 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…
Letter to my MP: Is government incompetent or simply acting in bad faith?
Dear Mr Pursglove, since this is my first communication with you for quite a while, may I wish you a belated Happy New Year!? It’s likely to be an interesting year politically, not least with the byelection in adjacent Wellingborough coming next month. It seems a bit odd to me that the Conservative candidate 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…