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Sociological and political barriers to transition to non-toxic ammuntion: UK experience

Shot were judged to be ‘non-recent’when they:

1. had been ‘walled off’ by the body showing they have been

present for some time;

2. showed no sign of bruising or haemorrhage around them;

3. were found in non-vital areas such as loose in the coelomic

cavity (accepting that they may or may not have been

‘recent’but were likely to be non-lethal).

SHOT ANALYSIS

Shot type was identified using the methodology employed

during the Defra-funded compliance study

. In brief, these

were based on their physical, chemical and additionally

atomic properties

i.e.

aspects of appearance and malleability,

ferromagnetic properties, reaction to nitric acid and potassium

iodide, and, for a sub-set of shot (32/109), including those for

which there were some inconsistencies in other methods

examination under scanning electron microscope which

produces definitive characteristic X-ray “profile” of the elements

present

. These techniques readily identify steel, bismuth

and lead, and distinguish them from each other. From a brief

review of types of shot available on the market, lead, bismuth,

steel and tungsten matrix shot types were used as positive

controls throughout the analyses. Provisional diagnosis of shot

type was made using results of appearance, malleability and

ferromagnetism. Results of chemical analyses and scanning

electron microscopy were considered conclusive.

Figure S2:

The‘X-ray output’from scanning electronmicroscopy

showing both a shot originally classified as ‘leadwith inconsistencies’

(a)

and a bismuth

sample

(b)

. The peaks indicate the shot to contain oxygen (O), carbon (C) and lead (Pb) (a) or bismuth (Bi) (b), peak height illustrating relative abundance.

(a)

(b)

FURTHER RESULTS OF THE 2013/14 GAME

DEALER STUDY

Of 159 ducks purchased from 32 game dealer outlets, 109

contained recent shot. Overall, 77% of these 109 ducks had been

shot with lead. Bismuth was the most commonly used non-

toxic shot (15%) followed by steel (7%). Figure S2 illustrates the

outputs of a lead and bismuth sample from scanning electron

microscopy.

Table S1 summaries the numbers of birds purchased regionally,

the number containing recent shot and the proportion of these

that had been shot with different shot types.

Melting point was omitted as it was extremely onerous and time consuming, difficult to measure and provided no additional confidence to the results.

Five of the lead samples (including one copper coated lead shot) had slight inconsistencies

e.g.

not looking obviously like lead in all characteristic or the precipitate

changing colour during the chemical analysis. Two samples, which were ultimately non-lead, had been described as“unsure”prior to scanning electron microscopy

analysis.

A high energy beam of electrons scans the sample surface and interacts with the sample atoms to produce characteristic x-rays which identify the

elemental composition, the areas under each peak provides a measure of relative abundance of elements in the sample.