Thurso researchers in study over failed lead shot pledge
A study involving Thurso-based researchers has found that UK shooting organisations have failed to fulfil a voluntary pledge to replace lead shot with non-toxic alternatives by 2025.
The pledge, made in February 2020 by the UK’s nine leading game shooting and rural organisations, was aimed at benefiting wildlife and the environment and ensuring a market for the healthiest game meat food products.
But a Cambridge University team, working with the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), found that lead shot was not being phased out quickly enough to achieve a complete voluntary transition to non-toxic ammunition by 2025. A final study has been published in the journal Conservation Evidence.
Laboratory analysis was led by study co-author Dr Mark Taggart, senior research fellow at the UHI Environmental Research Institute, part of UHI North, West and Hebrides, in Thurso.
He said: “We have been working alongside the Cambridge team to test the chemical composition of the ammunition used. From this data, it is clear a voluntary pledge to replace lead with non-toxic alternatives has failed.
“Regulation may now be the only way to prevent this unnecessary risk to the environment and to human health.
“Shooting organisations did a lot of questionnaire surveys when the pledge was introduced in 2020, and the results suggested many shooters thought the time had come to switch away from lead ammunition.
“Those responses stand in contrast to what we’ve actually measured for both pheasant and grouse.”
The team has monitored the impact of the pledge every year since its introduction, recruiting expert volunteers to buy whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across Britain and recover embedded shotgun pellets for analysis.
This year, the study – called SHOT-SWITCH – found that of 171 pheasants found to contain shot, 99 per cent had been killed with lead ammunition.
This year, for the first time, the team also analysed shotgun pellets found in red grouse carcasses shot in the 2024/25 shooting season and on sale through butchers’ shops and online retailers. In all 78 grouse carcasses from which any shot was recovered, the shot was lead.
Professor Rhys Green, from Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the report, said: “Many members of the shooting community had hoped that the voluntary pledge away from lead ammunition would avert the need for regulation. But the voluntary route has now been tested – with efforts made by many people – and it has not been successful.”
The team says that eating game meat killed using lead shot will expose people unnecessarily to additional dietary lead. Lead is toxic to humans even in very small concentrations.
It points out that many food safety agencies now advise that young children and pregnant women should avoid, or minimise, eating game meat from animals killed using lead ammunition.
In addition, discarded shot from hunting is said to poison and kill tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.
Prof Green said: “Private individuals pay a lot of money to shoot pheasants on some private estates – and people don’t like to change their habits.
“It’s a bit like wearing car seatbelts, or not smoking in pubs. Despite the good reasons for doing these things, some people were strongly against using regulation to achieve those changes, which are now widely accepted as beneficial.
“The parallel with shooting game with lead shotgun ammunition is striking.”
Terry Behan, spokesman for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, said: “While we await the government’s response to the Health and Safety Executive’s proposals, we remain committed to supporting the transition away from lead shot until legislation is in place.
“Five years after the voluntary transition away from lead shot began, significant progress has been made. Market-led solutions have emerged, with more than 150 sustainable shotgun cartridge options now available, and many shooters have successfully transitioned to lead-free ammunition.
“Manufacturers, retailers and game dealers have embraced the shift, ensuring that sustainable shooting practices continue to grow.
“BASC has invested considerable time into education – thousands of people have attended BASC’s sustainable ammunition events since 2020, where they are introduced to non-lead ammunition, given the opportunity to try it using clay targets and have their guns checked for their suitability for lead alternatives.
“Shooting plays a crucial role in conservation, wildlife management and the rural economy. Shooting providers and volunteers carry out £500m worth of conservation work, equivalent to 26,000 full-time jobs and 14m workdays each year.
“Any future legislation must be practical, proportionate and based on evidence and must ensure animal welfare. We will continue working with government, stakeholders and the wider industry to ensure a sustainable, workable future for shooting.”
