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community and organisations have arguably a stronger political
and lobbying voice than the angling community. Like many
membership organisations, the two main shooting organisations
are in the position to both provide leadership as well as reflecting
their memberships’ views. Driven grouse and pheasant shooting
is big business in the UK (Public and Corporate Economic
Consultants (PACEC) 2006, 2014) and is seen as ‘quintessentially
British’ (White-Spunner 2012). Whilst those from this industry
fear that a transition to non-toxic ammunitionmay have negative
economic impacts - with a perception that range for shooting will
need to be restrictedi.e. fewer shots at‘high birds’(White-Spunner
2012, and see Introduction), or is an unwelcome challenge, an
incentivewillremaintosupporttheshootingorganisationsintheir
resistance to change. Similarly the ammunition manufacturers,
with economic imperatives, have often been influential in their
resistance to change away from lead ammunition particularly at
the European level18(Gremse 2015).
Overall, the current polarised debate and its powerful players
create significant barriers to change.
Limited space in the landscape
for having a different voice
It would appear that defending the use of lead ammunition
and maintaining the status quo have become an economic
issue for the main shooting organisations. A weakening
public stance from either of the two main organisations has
the potential to be financially damaging in the short term
through potential losses to both various supporter funding
streams and membership. In the late 2000s, BASC, being
aware of both the science and the policy direction of the issue,
began to suggest internally that the use of lead ammunition
(both bullets and shot) was no longer sustainable and that
the shooting community should prepare itself for change (e.g.
Balmain 2010, Gray 2010). Perhaps had they been the single
shooting membership organisation they could have dealt with
the subsequent reaction and provided leadership on the issue
(as was the case in Denmark (Newth et al. 2015)).
It is the authors’ opinion that the debate has since become so
polarised that it would indeed have to be a confident advocate
from the shooting organisations or wider community who
would speak up in defence of the evidence on lead and promote
non-toxic ammunition. This sort of leadership was present in
Denmark at the beginning of their lead discussions and from the
outset the shooting community owned both the problem and
led the solution (Kanstrup 2006, Newth et al. 2015).
SO WHAT MESSAGE IS THE SHOOTER IN THE FIELD RE-
CEIVING?
Away from organisational politics, the commercial interests of
driven game shooting and ammunition manufacturers, what
should the average man or woman who enjoys shooting make
of the debate? It seems from the outside that they are in an
unenviable situation of being provided with a narrative that the
evidence is non-existent or exaggerated and promoted by those
with an anti-shooting agenda, and that the much lauded Lead
Ammunition Group process was flawed after all.
If, being concerned about the problem of lead poisoning, they
were to support a change to non-toxic ammunition this could
be perceived as disloyal to fellow shooters and contribute to
some sort of collective weakening of field sports in the UK.
Indeed, this is a prevailing message that lead ammunition
represents ‘the thin end of the wedge’ and that all attacks on
shooting should be resisted collectively, a theme illustrated from
the shooting media survey. In the authors’ experience there is
an apparent defensiveness frommany shooters as they feel that
their pastime and activities are being eroded. This is reflected in
a resistance in British conservation and wider society to flexible
sustainable harvesting practices and indeed, once a hunting
right has gone it is rarely returned12.
The costs of changing and not
changing
It is beyond the scope of this paper to put an economic value on
the current costs of the impact of lead ammunition vs the cost of
making the transition to non-toxic ammunition.
Overall, a transition to non-toxic ammunition would reduce
costs (as in resourcing or negative impacts) for:
1. Government: although resourcing would be greater in the
short term for extending current regulations to all habitats
and species, there would be no need for longer term
awareness raising, enforcement, monitoring etc.
2. Conservation community: as they would no longer need to
keep undertaking expensive research and surveillance work
to feed into advocacy work.
18Various processes outlined on the website of Association of European Manufacturers of Sporting Ammunition (AFEMS)
Ruth Cromie, Julia Newth, Jonathan Reeves, Michelle O’Brien, Katie Beckmann & Martin Brown