Persuasive Essay On Lead Shot

Lead shot a poison, but does it matter when the intention is to kill? There is a controversy in the hunting community, whether lead shot does enough harm to waterfowl to continue the ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting. The main reasons for using lead shot are stopping power, range, and cost. The alternatives are non-toxic shots such as steel, Hevi-Shot, bismuth. The most commonly used is steel because it is the cheapest of the non-toxic shot. There are many problems with steel shot, but if it can keep the birds alive or even if they swallow some healthy is it worth the side effects. The first One large problem that has been found with steel shot is that it has a lower density therefore giving it less foot pounds of energy which causes more wounded birds and less recovered ducks. Through recent studies, it has been shown that with a simple increase of two shot sizes you have the same foot pounds of energy with steel as with lead (Layne Simpson). This is an easy solution to gain foot pounds of energy. The other innovation has been the development of Hevi-Shot which is a non-toxic that is 10% more dense than lead (Environ-Metal). This means you have more foot pounds of energy than lead without the toxicity. This goes to show that with a small amount of change you …show more content…
It does this by keeping poisonous lead out of their gizzard and intestines (Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center). This is the reason that lead shot was banned from use for waterfowl and in some states Upland bird hunting. Birds ingest the lead pellets when they are getting rocks for their gizzard, which help break down their food. They have found greater amounts of lead in bottom feeding ducks such as blue winged teal and canvas back. Research has shown that twelve percent of fowl in 1990 had ingested at least one piece of shot and six percent had ingested two or more ( Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center