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very sophisticated high performance products. Recently, Pierce
et al. (2014) reviewed historical studies and showed comparable
lethality performance by lead and non-lead shot based on field
test hunting of mourning doves Zenaida macroura. In summary,
development has shown that steel and other non-lead metals
can be manufactured into pellets and loaded into high quality
cartridges in a way that ensures a well performing and lethal
shot. Several studies show that the practical efficiency and
lethality of a shot is connected primarily to the ability of the
shooter to hit his/her target. The change from lead to non-
lead shot in Denmark has put a positive focus on the need to
educate and train hunters. Noer et al. (2001) showed that during
the period when lead shot was phased out the frequency of
wounding of different game species ( e.g. pink-footed goose
Anser brachyrhynchus and red fox Vulpes vulpes ) in Denmark
declined. Danish hunters have become acquainted with non-
lead shot. A generation of new hunters has never fired a lead
shot cartridge.
SOCIAL BARRIERS
Many Danish hunters were worried that the phasing out of
lead shot would cause a decline in numbers of hunters and
weaken the socio-political power of the hunting community in
Denmark. The same concern is raised today in other countries
as an argument against the phase-out of lead shot. The validity
of this argument can be tested by using the Danish example
of a 20 year total ban on lead shot. The hypothesis is that if
hunters began giving up hunting due to the phase-out of lead
shot this would cause a decline in the harvest of game and/or
numbers of hunters. In the following section two parameters are
analysed: firstly, the number of hunters in Denmark over time,
and secondly, the hunting bag of three groups of quarry species
harvested with shotguns over time. Data for both are available
from the 1970s and 1980s respectively and data for the period of
the phase-out of lead shot can easily be extracted.
Since the 1930s Danish hunters have been registered as it is
a legal requirement that they possess a hunting license. The
system is administered by the Government, and since 1989 by
the Ministry of Environment. Data are published and are openly
available. Figure 1 shows the number of hunting license holders
in Denmark in the period from 1980 to 2013.
In general, the number of hunters remains stable over the whole
period. It has fluctuated between 160,000 and 175,000, and thus
has changed by less than 10% over the period of 33 years. There
seems to be a slight decline from the year 2000 and thereafter,
but this is unlikely to be a reaction to the regulation of lead
shot that came into force earlier. Neither is it likely that the new
hunting act of 1993 had a significant impact. The most likely
reason for the small fluctuations is that the number of hunters is
affected by the popularity of hunting and therefore on societal
trends more than legal regulations. Today, 30 years after the first
regulation of lead shot and almost 20 year after the total ban,
the number of hunters in Denmark is the highest (177,000) since
registration was introduced in the 1930s. There seems to be no
indication, that the regulation and total phase-out of lead shot
for hunting has had any negative impact either on the number
of hunters or on the long term popularity of hunting.
The annual harvest is monitored by the Danish Centre for
Environment and Energy/Aarhus University and basic data are
publicly available.
Figure 1: Number of hunting license holders in Denmark from 1980 to 2013. Arrows indicate the time of regulation of lead shot in three hunting
habitats. Source: Annual publications from the Danish Nature Agency protocols.
Practical and social barriers to switching to non-toxic ammuntion: Danish experience