Originally Posted By: Grouse Guy


One-hundred twenty-three gizzards from upland game birds (chukar, Alectoris chukar; and common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus) harvested by hunters in southern Ontario, Canada, were examined for lead pellet ingestion by manual examination of gizzard contents and by radiography. Lead pellets were found to be ingested by chukars (6/76; 8%) and the common pheasant (16/47; 34%).

Couple questions relative to the above:

1. Did an examination of the birds shot show them to be in other than normal, healthy condition? If they had been caught and held in captivity, is the researcher who did the study suggesting that the lead found in their gizzards would have proven fatal to them? Once more, we have birds that we know for a fact died from "lead poisoning"--but they were on the receiving end of that lead as it was fired from a shotgun. Whatever lead they had in their gizzards was obviously not the cause of death.

2. There is a population of wild chukar in southern Ontario? That's a LONG ways east of the nearest wild chukar populations of which I'm aware, and it's not really chukar country. So . . . are we talking game farm birds, which means lead concentrations would obviously be significantly higher than in the wild?

The very cogent point made by MT FWP is that lead concentrations in upland settings tend to be at a very low level. Hard to believe you'd get that many birds ingesting lead from private (or even public) land where wild upland birds are hunted. A preserve setting would be closer to something like a field heavily hunted for doves, and the likelihood of lead ingestion much higher.

Ben, if you're going to quote studies based on GAME FARM birds, assuming you're making the least effort to be objective and honest, you might so state. After all, what we're talking about is banning lead on WMA's in MT, where--quite obviously--lead concentration in the form of shot fall is going to be at a significantly lower level. Shall we all talk about apples, rather than apples vs oranges here? It'd make for a significantly more intelligent and useful discussion.




Woops--My comments start with "Couple questions". Sorry about that.

Last edited by L. Brown; 01/11/10 06:01 PM.