Changes in Nontoxic Shot Restrictions for Upland Bird Hunters
By Don Kraege, Waterfowl Section Manager
If you’re a waterfowl hunter, you’re probably aware that waterfowl can die if they eat spent lead shot pellets in their feeding areas. Lead shot is extremely toxic to waterfowl, with one #6 pellet enough to kill a duck under certain conditions. Swans are the most visible evidence of lead poisoning, due to their habit of feeding deep within wetlands that have lead pellets still remaining from past years. Bald eagles and other raptors can be poisoned by feeding on other wildlife containing lead shot. Problems with the use of lead shot were discovered by extensive testing during the 1970’s and 1980’s, which led to a phase-out of lead shot as an allowable waterfowl load during 1986-1991.
If lead shot is toxic to waterfowl and other wildlife, why is lead still allowed for hunting other game birds in areas where waterfowl and other wildlife have access to spent lead pellets? Monitoring has found problems on some pheasant release sites in western Washington that are also waterfowl feeding areas. Nontoxic shot has been required at the Skagit Wildlife Area pheasant release site since 1988, when soil sampling found an estimated 6.8 tons of lead on the site. This site is planted with barley each year, and ducks feed several inches into saturated soil looking for food and grit. Sampling at the Voice of America site in Clallam County estimated 1.5 tons of lead on the site last year. Sampling lead pellet densities in soil and waterfowl tissues is the best way to document problem areas, but these methods are labor intensive, expensive, and sometimes difficult to interpret. Due to these limitations, sampling has been limited.
Some of the main concerns we’ve heard about using nontoxic shot include cost, effectiveness, and shotgun barrel damage. Currently, six nontoxic shot alternatives exist, and more are being developed. Costs of alternatives are more expensive than lead shot, particularly newer alternatives which can cost over $2 per shell. However, steel shot prices have declined and are approaching those of lead shot. Prices of newer alternatives are expected to decline as new shot types become more widely available. In numerous shooting tests, wounding loss from the use of steel shot has been scientifically proven to be no different from that of lead. Poor performance of steel is often related to mismatched load/choke combinations and exceeding the effective range of loads. Fears about barrel damage from nontoxic shot have not been substantiated for the vast majority of shotguns (check with your manufacturer to be sure). Several of the new alternatives have ballistics properties similar to lead, eliminating these concerns.
At the April 2000 Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, 11 sites were converted to nontoxic shot use based on a high potential for ingestion of lead by wildlife. These sites will be posted and listed in the new waterfowl and upland game seasons pamphlet. In addition to this action, the Commission directed WDFW to evaluate the use of nontoxic shot for all game bird hunting in the future. WDFW is currently preparing a report to assess the need for nontoxic shot restrictions for hunting all game species, to be presented at the January 2001 workshop of the Fish and Wildlife Commission.
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