My reaction to nontoxic shot?
When the US first banned lead shot for waterfowl in 1991, I questioned the need for non-toxic shot when hunting waterfowl in dry fields. There was no questioning the data which showed that ducks and geese that ingested lead shot when they fed in marshes were being poisoned. But were ducks and geese feeding in dry fields ingesting lead shot? Probably not, so why worry? I accepted the change and learned to shoot steel shot.
In the past 10 years, I have come to realize the wisdom of the decision to require non-toxic shot for hunting waterfowl even on dry land. I even phased out using lead shot for upland birds, including in areas where it is allowed. Research has shown that raptors that feed heavily on big game gut piles can ingest enough lead particles to cause lead poisoning. But there is another way that raptors can ingest lead. Even the most ethical hunter, who practices shooting and uses a well-trained dog, will occasionally lose a bird. If a raptor kills or scavenges the lost bird, it can ingest the lead pellets in the carcass. It only takes a few pellets to cause problems.
A recent goose hunting adventure reinforced my decision to use non-toxic shot for all bird hunting. We were hunting geese in a grass pasture during the early season in Western Wyoming. I had already dropped one bird at around 40 yards. Another flock of over a dozen birds came in over the decoys. At 45 yards, they started swinging wide. I hit the first bird hard, it folded so I picked out a second bird and fired again. The second bird folded and hit the ground, but then it recovered and started flying off before I could shoot again. I could see it was struggling to catch up to the flock so I watched it. After several hundred yards, I saw it go down. I grabbed one of the dogs, Hammer, and my shotgun and took off. We quickly found the first bird dead on the ground. I stashed him in a spot where he would be easy to find on the return. Then Hammer and I took off to look for the second bird.
I had a pretty good line on where the bird had gone down, but was not sure how far it was. After going over a ¼ of a mile, I could see a bird on the ground. It looked like it was still alive. As we got closer, it flew off. I was a bit confused as it did not look like a goose. Then I realized that was because it was not a goose, it was an immature bald eagle. It had been sitting on the goose, which was still on the ground. At that point I sent Hammer to get the goose. It was very dead and the eagle had just begun to pluck a few feathers. It was a big goose, a fact that was reinforced during the long walk back to the blind.
When we got it home, I discovered the big goose weighed 11 ½ pounds. That is about as big as they get in this area. It also had four #2 steel pellets in the breast and body, but there were no broken bones. If I had been using lead shot and the eagle had eaten the goose because I could not find it, he would have ingested the pellets since they were in the meat. That would probably have been enough lead to poison the eagle. He would have become weaker and lost coordination. If he did not collide with some obstacle, he might have been too weak to migrate to wintering grounds. He would slowly starve.
Those who question the value of steel shot are probably thinking that my story proves that it is an inferior product. Not true. Because I was hunting over decoys in the early season, I was hoping my shots would be close, around 35-40 yards. The first shot in my 10 gauge was a steel #2, followed by steel BBs. Two of the three birds I shot were dropped with one shot. Both of them weighed between 8 and 9 pounds. The bird that sailed off weighed 11 ½ pounds and was around 45 yards when I hit him with a load of steel #2s. Both smaller birds were hit with steel BBs and were dead when they hit the ground. If I had been using all BBs, I know that 3 or 4 pellets would have killed the big bird with one shot. A combination of a big bird and longer range than planned meant I had made an error in selecting shells for the hunt.
Written by Armond Acri