Warning by expert panel says up
to 400,000 wildfowl a year may suffer lead poisoning
Sun 27 May
2018 08.00 BST
Several rare bird species,
including a breed of red-headed duck listed as “vulnerable”, are under threat
from lead poisoning linked to shooting, a new report says.
Numbers of common pochard, a duck
species at risk
of global extinction, have fallen substantially over the past 30
years, a decline partly attributed to the fact that they eat some of the 5,000
tonnes of lead pellets discarded in the countryside by people shooting game,
according to the Lead
Ammunition Group (LAG).
Other species affected by lead
poisoning include the grey
partridge, which is also on the RSPB’s “red list” of threatened
species, as well as the golden eagle, common buzzard and red kite, the LAG
says.
The warning comes in a major new
report by the LAG, an expert panel set up by the government in 2010, which says
up to 400,000 wildfowl a year may suffer from lead poisoning, causing up to
100,000 deaths. Recent research cited in the report shows that lead can be
toxic at lower levels than previously thought.
More than 600,000 people go
shooting in the UK each year, part of an industry worth about £2bn. They
typically use lead shot to hunt birds, a practice known as wildfowling. The
shot scatters when it leaves the gun barrel, and a large proportion falls to
the ground. Birds eat
the lead shot, mistaking it for the gravel their gizzards need to digest food.
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