When a hunter fires a single shotgun cartridge, up to 300 tiny lead pellets scatter into the wild. Birds often mistake these small pieces of metal for seeds or grit, swallow them, and suffer from lead poisoning. Sacha Dench, an Australian biologist known as "The Human Swan" after flying alongside migrating swans across Europe, warns that many people do not realize how serious this problem is.
According to Dench, between 7,000 and 13,000 tonnes of lead enter nature in the UK every year. She estimates that lead poisoning kills up to 100,000 water birds annually in the UK and around one million across Europe. Conservationists say the toxic metal is even pushing some vulnerable bird species toward extinction.
To protect wildlife, England, Wales, and Scotland plan to introduce a ban on selling and using lead ammunition starting in April 2029. Dench's campaign group, the Lead Ammunition Collective, recently won the RSPB Medal—the highest award from the UK's largest bird protection charity—for working to end the use of the toxic metal.
Some hunters and deer managers have already switched to non-toxic ammunition. Sharif Adams, a deer manager in Devon, explained that moving away from lead was an easy choice because his work focuses on conservation. In addition, food dealers increasingly accept only deer shot with non-lead ammunition to keep meat safe for human food.