The uneducated are oft' horrified. Many alarmists focus on the small picture to spread panic. For instance, all the worry over west nile virus, bird flu, chronic wasting disease and renewed concerns over lead as a few examples. Take any of those "small stuff" issues and research the fatal outcomes world wide. Then compare that outcome to fatalities resulting from something as well known as drunk driving (totally preventable). Qualifies as a jaw dropper if you never considered it. Another alarmist focus is on the individual versus the species. It would be sad to see a dead loon with an ingested lead sinker and call for an immediate ban on such a deadly product. The loon, as a species, is doing well. Now let's consider a big picture species level issue such as the current Gulf of Mexico oil contamination. There will be a drastic outcome for many individual life forms and there is also a potential species level disaster for the brown pelican, only just removed from the endangered list. But we humans aren't about to give up on oil. Now I don't want to be alarmist, but that little incident may kill more individual living creatures than the last century of sport (i.e. non-commercial) hunting and fishing has. Of course I can't provide the numbers, so I guess I could be held out to be offering mere conjecture as rebuttal for the proven dead loons rationale - sorry.
I did read the UK article and it did not deter me from eating game. A few scientific weasle words used and there was no effort taken to remove any pellets, just cook them all. Then, you had to replace all meat meals with just shot game and on and on. Now there was one pheasant in the study that was tenderized in the field. The average number of pellets per pheasant was 3+ but one bird had 18 pellets - 10 yards full choke??. But who would cook 18 known pellets. That skews the results somewhat, as well as not removing pellets as a first step skews the entire study somewhat.
I will do a small study in a few weeks. Since I have some routine blood tests due, I asked the doctor to add lead testing, given the concerns out there and that I have eaten so much game in my life. If I can remember, I'll give a report.
Cheers,
Jack
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Hunt ethically. Eat heartily.
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