Hi Jennifer,
We run a small animal rehab centre north of Stockhom in Sweden. Due to some problems with rooms, activity has slowed downed a bit. Usually we have about 1200 patients each year - all species of birds and small mammals (mostly hedgehogs). Mortality rate is about 50 percent. This is not too bad as the patients usually arrive in a pretty bad shape.
I'm sending you a pictures from the centre of a Sparrow owl, Glaucidium passerinum. This is Sweden's smallest owl.
The owls are are not much bigger than a sparrow, but very greedy bird which eats prey much larger than themselves!
This individual suffered from a broken wing.
Cheers,
Ann: We should not focus on lead in particular.
It’s been a long long time since I fired a shot gun at any wildlife however I grew up in the post war gun culture. My youngest uncles were still filling their cartridges at home in the late 40’s to keep costs down. In the 50’s many of us poured our own lead sinkers too. I had access to sheet lead scraps from the acid plant and parchment mill so I “rolled” my own sinkers. Lunch time was there was so busy as I also had the “die” to press wobblers out of scrap copper and brass. Eventually the bosses had an enquiry on stores the mysteriously disappeared. A lot of good metal finished up in the drink.
Stalking river fish later on in low water I uncovered vast quantities of the stuff and it usually included masses of tangled nylon line around every snag so I began to worry. But the greatest piles of nylon occurred along the rocky beaches. It was amongst the gear deliberately lost from cargo ships on their way to our international port.
Ann; all creatures in the wild suffer greatly from our excesses, the deliberate dumping and the sport. Unfortunately the odds today in their favour are zilch.
Lead under the skin after near fatal impacts is one problem; lead in the environment is another. My father taught me to carefully look for every piece of shot in a fresh carcass.
He wore a hole in his upper lip nearly all his life from a hot mouth full after a boyhood shooting misshape. Friends hey!
A few of my acquaintances carried shrapnel after ww2. They don’t tend to die early if they survived their original wounds. The body is pretty good at locking up stuff it doesn’t like.
Dad reckoned a shooter should give up the sport when they had to fill a rabbit with lead in order to knock it over. You shouldn’t eat bruised bodies either.
yeah yeah but the benefit of having a gun for hunting tiny creatures & shooting shadows is that if someone else with a gun tries to shoot you or your friend, you have a chance of stopping them (at least THAT's the pro-gun logic the punters have given us on this blog before). Gun ownership averts disasters, therefore it must be good for nature too.
(end sarcasm)
Gorgeous owl ann. Who wouldn't want to save that wonderful bird?
Rog and Gavin,
You seem to be familiar with bird hunting and fishing.... I don't know if you are familiar with the issue of lead poisoning in the nature...
It is very common that birds suffer from lead poisoning either from fishing gear or shots.
The topic is now under discussion and some authorities have proposed to ban all ammunition consisting of lead...
I read a story the other day in my paper. There is an increase in the number of female hunters in Sweden and they have an association now for this.
The story continued. A woman got a rifle or a shotgun as a birthday present and now the funniest thing she knows is shooting small birds in the forest on Sundays! Really, really crazy IMO, as you don't get any meat etc from the bird.
This practise is very widespread in Europe.
It is especially popular to hunt birds in Malta as it is a major area for migratory birds.
Lots of wounded birds are reported and sometimes they use living birds as prey , hooked as a fishing bait....cruel!
It also belongs in the macho culture in Malta to shot endangered predatory birds....
Duck hunt seems also widespread throughout the world...
Now I always don't feel disgust for hunters as sometimes/often some hunters feed the deer and small game with additional hay during harsh winters and some hunters are doing the good job , tracking animals that has been injured in car accidents etc.
A lot of hunting birds are territiorial, if they are taken away from their area they are unlikely to survive in another's territory.
While roaming the www I came across this doc “Victorian hunting guide 2007” Dept Sustainability and Environment where the Minister for Water, Environment and Climate Change adds some credibility to the 3 doz pages of good advice on firearms stc.
http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/CA256F310024B628/0/D921988A5881C10ECA257291007F086E/$File/Victorian+Hunting+Guide+2007.pdf
What is in dispute elsewhere is the duck season or lack of it. Guess why.
Clearly what’s not in dispute is the introduced deer population and the gun shops, nor the windup from Winchester on ammunition. Extraordinary!