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Printed media may not have the greatest influence on shooter
attitudes but is likely to contribute, particularly those articles
written by trusted commentators. The role of e.g. British
newspapers in shaping public opinion on a range of topical
subjects has been the subject of social science research and has
indicated a range of influences (e.g. McNair 2009).
Why did the Use Lead Legally
campaign not achieve its aim?
The shooter questionnaire survey (Cromie et al. 2010) indicated
that the main reasons for non-compliance with the existing
law were:
1. “Lead poisoning is not a sufficient problem to warrant
restrictions” i.e. shooters were not convinced of the
morbidity and mortality caused and thus the need for
the regulations (indeed the media survey found frequent
reference to ‘never seeing bodies’);
2. “Don’t like the alternatives”, shooters reporting that they
felt the non-toxic alternatives were too expensive, not
effective and/or not widely available;
3. “Not going to get caught”i.e. shooters knew that using lead
would not involve penalties as the law is not enforced.
The Use Lead Legally campaign did not seek to address any of
these three issues but requested shooters to obey the law to
prevent further restriction on the use of lead ammunition - ‘use
it legally or we’ll lose it’ i.e. a different reason and thus likely to
involve different behavioural motivation from the above.
The main narrative from the shooting media in the one year
prior to the 2013/2014 game dealer survey reinforced these first
two themes above.
What are the barriers to change?
The above-mentioned reasons from the shooter questionnaire
survey and themes from the shooting media survey are likely to
create motivation to resist either current regulations or future
complete transition to non-toxic ammunition and deserve
further investigation. In this section the three known (i.e. from
the shooter survey) and four proposed barriers are explored and
potential means by which to address them are briefly described.
1. “LEAD POISONING IS NOT A SUFFICIENT PROBLEM
TO WARRANT RESTRICTIONS”:
i.e. shooters are not convinced that this is a significant cause of
mortality: Pain et al. (2015) estimate in the region of 100,000s
of game birds and wildfowl dying of lead poisoning annually.
Lead poisoning, as a disease, suffers from the same problems
of perception as other insidious (often chronic) diseases which,
by their nature, are often largely unseen by most people. It is
likely that the overwhelmingmajority of shooters have no direct
experience of the deaths and illness of wildlife caused by the
ingestion of lead ammunition.
Surveillance for causes of morbidity and mortality in wildlife
relies to a large extent on visually detecting and then examining
animal carcases. Hence, garden bird diseases i.e. those seen
proximate to human habitation are relatively well surveilled
and studied (e.g. Robinson et al. 2010). Acute events such as oil
spills or epidemics of avian botulism result in visible (to humans)
numbers of carcases with animals dying at a rate quicker than
predation and decomposition remove them. However, diseases
and intoxications occurring on broader geographical scales and
extended timescales, or in remote areas, or where predators
and scavengers abound, are usually undetected by human
eyes (Prosser et al. 2008) hence lead poisoning is something of
an ‘invisible disease’ (Pain 1991). The problem of lead poisoning
cases not being reported may be confounded further since
lead poisoning weakens affected animals and can predispose
them to another cause of death e.g. predation, flying accident or
concurrent disease (Mathiasson 1993, Kelly and Kelly 2005), and
this ultimate problem may be noted in surveillance reporting
without an appreciation of the underlying sub-clinical poisoning.
Indeed, some of the negative effects of lead on human health
(such as diminished cognitive function, chronic kidney disease
and elevated blood pressure (Lanphear et al. 2005, Iqbal et al.
2009, EFSA 2010)) might not alert the patient, nor the physician,
to the cause. As an illustration, an environment and health
specialist commented, with respect to lead, ‘you don’t take your
child to the doctors due to poor exam results’ (Ráez-Luna pers.
comm.15 ).The prevalent narrative fromthe shootingmedia is that
no-one has ever ‘seen’ cases of lead poisoned people or wildlife
which facilitates the logical conclusion that such poisoning does
not occur.
It is possible that if lead poisoning of wildlife was perceived
as a problem, shooters might want to take responsibility for
15Plenary session at the conference:
Ruth Cromie, Julia Newth, Jonathan Reeves, Michelle O’Brien, Katie Beckmann & Martin Brown