Here in the UK the LAG that was set up by the government five years ago became heavily discredited last year. The chairman, who was the last British Association for Shooting & Conservation chief executive, had a letter made public in which he came out in favour of a lead ban, before the full committee had seen all the evidence.
It might have been expected that this fellow, John Swift, would naturally lean towards lead shot retention. However, it appears his release of this letter was an ill-judged attempt to influence members of the committee who were either neutral or against a ban. One probably did not have to look too far behind Swift to see some political string-pulling going on.
The LAG report was sitting in the Minister's in-tray at the time of the referendum and Cameron resignation. Liz Truss was moved from that department to become SoS for Justice. It must have been one of her last - and best - actions to rule against the report and allow the continued use of lead ammunition. In fact, she was quite blunt: "With regard to the impact of lead ammunition on wildlife, we note that the report does not provide evidence of causation linking possible impacts of lead ammunition with sizes of bird populations in England. In both instances – human health and wildlife – the report did not show that the impacts of lead ammunition were significant enough to justify changing current policy; we therefore do not accept your recommendation to ban the use of lead ammunition."
Tim
Last edited by trw999; 07/21/16 09:22 AM.
