COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE

Shooting Times magazine has this week reported that “Leaked papers reveal the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust's campaign aims to focus public concern on consumption of game that has been shot with lead. The council of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), the charity founded by the wildfowler and conservationist Sir Peter Scott, has approved a strategy which will see it campaign publicly for a ban on the use of lead gunshot for all shooting in England within the next three years”. 

Inside the magazine Tim Bonner deconstructs the WWT’s campaign and explains how its failure to achieve further restrictions through the process set up by the Government to consider issues around the use of lead shot has lead to this aggressive, alarmist campaign. The Alliance retains the belief firstly that there is no current evidence of either environmental or health concerns that would justify further restrictions, and that even if there were economic and effective alternatives to lead that in itself would not be a reason to prohibit the use of lead shot. If such evidence does come forward we must, of course, act responsibly in addressing it, but all the exaggerated and unfounded claims made by the WWT suggest that their case simply does not stand up on the current science.

Buy this week's Shooting Times for the full story; a short piece appears on Shooting Times' website here.