Further to this morning’s news that a new study by leading UK academics has shown the shooting industry’s complete failure to achieve its much-heralded five-year voluntary transition away from using toxic lead ammunition (here), some within the gamebird shooting sector are continuing to shoot themselves in the foot.
Yesterday the Shooting Times published a news article that included the following statement:
“While there are claims from anti-shooting groups that the voluntary move away from lead use has yielded few results, the evidence for this suggests otherwise“.
I’m not sure whether the Shooting Times author and/or editor was aware of the impending publication of the Shot-Switch paper showing the failure of the five-year voluntary transition away from toxic lead ammunition and that this news item was his/their attempt to spin the results, or whether it is simply an unhappy coincidence (for Shooting Times) that this embarrassing nonsense was published the day before the scientific findings were published.
Either way, it makes them look ridiculous. Describing five years worth of peer-reviewed scientific evidence from leading experts at the University of Cambridge as “claims from anti-shooting groups” just exposes the lengths they’ll go to to push their propaganda.
It’s apparent that the Shooting Times article was probably based on a recent blog published on the BASC website on 24 February 2025 (although the BASC blog does not slur the scientific credentials of the Cambridge University research team, at least not this time – BASC does have form for doing this – see here).
The BASC blog, marking the fifth year of the shooting industry’s pledge to undertake a five-year voluntary transition away from using toxic lead ammunition, claims:
“As we reach this milestone, significant progress has been made. Market-led solutions have emerged, education and awareness have increased, and the sector has demonstrated its ability to adapt and innovate“.
That so-called “significant progress” ignores entirely the five years of research evidence produced by the Shot-Switch project and instead focuses on the “major strides” made by the shooting industry in terms of the availability of alternative, non-toxic ammunition and a claim that, “thousands of people have attended BASC’s sustainable ammunition events since 2020, before then switching to lead-free ammunition themselves“.
I’ve never understood the shooting industry’s arguments about there being a lack of availability of non-toxic ammunition. If you go to any large hunting retailers in the US you’ll see entire aisles stocked to the brim with non-toxic alternatives such as steel shot and bismuth:
Perhaps these products, or similar, aren’t easily available in the UK? I don’t know, I’ve never tried to buy any but if non-toxic ammunition isn’t easily available in the UK then what are all the waterfowl hunters using? They’ve been banned from using toxic lead shot for killing certain species and over wetland environments in the UK for decades (although compliance is low in England and in Scotland) so where are the compliant hunters sourcing their non-toxic ammunition?
BASC’s blog also makes the following claim:
“The impact of the transition is already being seen in the field. Many shoots have embraced lead-free ammunition, game dealers are increasingly sourcing lead-free game, and retailers are responding to consumer demand for more sustainable products. Through a combination of industry innovation and engagement with the shooting community, BASC and its members have demonstrated that sustainability and shooting can go hand in hand“.
This claim seems to be at odds with the particularly candid opinion of Louisa Clutterbuck, CEO of Eat Wild (the development board for ‘wild meat’ in the UK, although claiming that non-native reared & released gamebirds are ‘wild’ seems to be stretching it a bit!).
In an article published online in May 2024, Louisa said this:
“I have heard from several game dealers recently that some shoots are returning to lead on shoot days which is most alarming and retroactive. They don’t feel there is any benefit to them as a shoot but surely having all your game collected and knowing it is entering the food chain is the largest benefit of them all?
“When we are speaking to retail outlets we never bring up lead shot, we presume they are happy with it unless stated otherwise. Unfortunately, there has been a steep rise in these conversations and so we are discussing the options of lead-free shot more and more. I say unfortunately because there still is not enough supply of lead-free game to fulfill our current supermarkets as well as any new markets“
AND
“Waitrose cannot get enough supply of lead-free birds that they need, and their sales have dramatically fallen because of this, it will be no skin off their nose if they have to switch to selling farmed guinea fowl, we are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise“.
BASC is correct in saying that supermarkets are indeed responding to consumer demand for more sustainable products but that’s nothing to do with ‘the impact of the transition‘, as BASC claims, because so far, despite disturbingly inaccurate claims, evidence has shown that not one of the supermarkets has been able to ensure that all its gamebird products are lead-free.
Hopefully, by this time next week Defra’s Secretary of State Steve Reed MP and his colleagues in the devolved governments will have made an announcement about whether they intend to accept the recommendations of the Health & Safety Executive to ban the use of lead ammunition.
Raptor Persecution UK 
A transition away from lead shot wouldn’t have been hard to do considering steel shot is available (which the article claims manufacturers and retailers are embracing) If shooters actually supported a transition away from lead shot / cared about ending the use of lead shot, they could have very easily done so within 5 years. Again the shooting industry / shooting support full of falsehood. To be brutally honest I don’t care about people who eat game meat getting lead poisoning, I hope it breaks their teeth. (I’m sure they’ll be aware or ought to be) I care about the wildlife eating the contaminated birds / animals and the horrific-ness of the birds / animals who aren’t killed outright and may suffer the affect of lead poisoning. Also care about any contamination to the environment and also birds actually eating lead shot.
Though not eating Game meat is somewhat even more wasteful, it’s going to happen anyway so I suppose I can find some sympathy for people eating Game meat being lead poisoned.
If a shop or restaurant was selling game meat claiming it was lead free would they be open to being sued if we took the meat away with us and proved it contained lead. Could they be sued for poisoning customers
Hi John, I think you’d probably struggle to demonstrate that a customer (e.g. you) had been poisoned by that specific intake of lead so suing the company would likely be difficult. However, your local trading standards department would probably be very interested to learn about a company deliberately misleading consumers about its products.
I guess that significant progress has been made, though not in the sense intended by the article. The evidence accumulated over the five years of the campaign has demonstrated very clearly that, despite all the ‘sustainable ammunition events’ BASC claims to have run, the voluntary approach is simply not going to work. Shooters have scarcely budged at all away from the use of lead and it is hard to see what would persuade them to change in future apart from a change in the law, given that they have not done so already. The article makes it clear that most ammunition manufacturers supply non-toxic ammunition so the failure for shooters to change stems from their own reluctance rather than a lack of availability of alternatives.
It does seem to me that the author of the article is resigned to a change in the law – at least with respect to shot – as it talks about ‘supporting the transition “until legislation is in place”. I do hope that Mr Reed takes the evidence in front of him now and acts to bring in a comprehensive ban once and for all. If ammunition suppliers cannot legally sell lead ammunition that should dramatically reduce the amount being fired out into the environment every year.
As with the smoking ban: voluntary change does not work.
However, where the shooting industry is concerned no law exists that they are prepared to obey: be it wildfowling, peat burning or bird of prey persecution: if they don’t like it, they ignore it! Then they get help from senior police management, PCC’s, judges and magistrates.
It is no wonder they think they are entitled to do whatever they want!
I don’t understand why the game suppliers and game assurance scheme operators are not being prosecuted by traders (like Waitrose) or Trading Standards.
The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 state:
Regulation 6: “A trader is guilty of an offence if he engages in advertising which is misleading under regulation 3.”
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1276/regulation/6
Regulation 3(1) prohibits advertising which is misleading. R3(2) Advertising is misleading which—
(a) in any way, including its presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the traders to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches; and by reason of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour;
(3) In determining whether advertising is misleading, account shall be taken of all its features, and in particular of any information it contains concerning—
(a) the characteristics of the product (as defined in paragraph (4));
(4) In paragraph (3)(a) the “characteristics of the product” include—
(b) nature of the product;
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1276/regulation/3
The steel shot cartridges available in the USA use single use plastic wads, which is also what has been used in relatively small quantity by wildfowlers in the U.K. The five year voluntary transition was not just about moving to non toxic shot but also unlike the rest of the world to do so with biodegradable wads, given game shooting use significantly more wads than wildfowlers, wads which would otherwise litter the environment.
Therefore the u.k. has driven the innovation requirements for biodegradable wads, which has not been easy due to Covid and wars causing material and supply issues.