Lead shot is considered the ideal pellet for finely built, lightweight British shotguns, but it is a material linked with the poisoning of wildfowl and some birds of prey. So the good news is that it should have all but disappeared from wetland areas by autumn 1997.
Shooting organisations, conservationists and the Government's nature advisers have confirmed that all 12-bore weapons, the most popular size for shooting wildfowl, should fire only unleaded pellets in four years' time.
Huntsmen who use rarer, larger-bore guns, such as 10 and 8-bores, or smaller ones, such as 20-bore weapons, will be exempt until suitable cartridges can be developed. But by the year 2000 these too should be subject to a lead shot ban.
The new agreement lays down the areas in which the ban will operate. They include estuaries, salt marshes, lakes, reservoirs, foreshores, gravel pits, ponds, rivers, marshes and seasonally flooded land, including water meadows. An exclusion zone around these areas will also operate, given that lead shot can travel up to 300 metres when fired. Farmers indulging in a spot of rough shooting on dry land will be exempt.
The phasing-out, which will begin in September 1995, will be voluntary. However, John Holmes, of the vertebrate ecology and conservation branch of the the Joint Nature Conservation Committee in Peterborough, the Government's nature conservation advisers, warns that legal powers will be sought if hunters flout the agreement. He says: "We want to take the shooters and everyone involved with us."
The move to ban lead shot follows two years of talks between a wide range of organisations such as conservationists, officials at the environment department and shooting bodies. They have been in discussions since a meeting organised by the International Wildfowl and Wetlands Bureau, in Brussels in 1991.
It was called following mounting evidence that many species of wetland and wading birds can be poisoned by lead shot, after mistaking it for grit used to aid food digestion. The lead shot, an estimated 160 tons of which is discarded in Britain and more than 4,000 tons in the European countryside annually, causes paralysis and a lingering death.
The dangers were highlighted by a case earlier in 1993 when 27 whooper swans at a pond near Jedburgh in the Borders died as a result of lead poisoning. David Rollo, a veterinary surgeon based at Berwick, found that some of the birds were carrying between 56 and 58 lead pellets in their gizzards. Lead levels in the birds' livers ranged up to 250 parts per billion, or nearly ten times a toxic dose.
Birds of prey which feed on wildfowl can also suffer. Mr Holmes says: "Positive evidence for this has come from marsh harriers in the Camargue. Lead levels here were consistent with levels found to poison bald eagles in the United States."
Environmentalists, mindful that the Netherlands and Denmark swiftly put a lead shot ban in place, have been concerned at Britain's slower progress. But John Harradine, head of research at the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, near Wrexham, Clwyd, believes the timetable is realistic, and takes into account special circumstances.
Unlike in continental Europe, many British shooters have a tradition of using finely made but less robust weapons. The main alternative to lead shot is steel or soft iron. But conventional cartridges housing such metal pellets can damage the barrels of many British guns and create a potentially hazardous build-up of pressure.
Dr Harradine says the domestic ammunition industry has needed time to develop new cartridges that protect the gun and control the burning times. There has been concern that steel shot cartridges could also be less effective than traditional lead shot, causing more birds to be wounded rather than killed. The new shot cartridges need to be made in such a way as to ensure "they do not solve one problem only to create new ones," says Dr Harradine.
Ammunition makers are confident that they will have solved these issues and have the necessary manufacturing technology in place to meet demand at a cost-effective price.
Stephen Dales, managing director of Gamebore Cartridge Company in Hull, one of the companies developing the new ammunition, says the solution is a wad or plastic cup installed in the cartridge which envelopes the steel shot. He says: "It's a bit like a bucket with the shot inside. The cup has slits down the side. As it emerges from the barrel, wind resistance takes over and the plastic peels back like the petals of a flower releasing the steel shot."
Bismuth and tungsten have also been tested but the costs of the cartridges are high, and making the shot is a highly specialised process.
Mr Dales says that companies have also looked at coating lead pellets with a non-toxic material. He says: "Unfortunately the gizzard of a wildfowl bird is quite harsh as it is full of grit. So whatever coating is put on would be worn away."
