Woman who flew with swans warns of lead danger
Sacha Dench, known as the "human swan", welcomes new laws banning the sale of lead ammunition.
**Woman who flew with swans warns of lead danger**
Conservationist Sacha Dench has welcomed the ban on lead ammunition
A conservationist has praised new laws banning the sale of lead ammunition, while warning that many people do not realise how serious the threat is to wildlife.
Sacha Dench, who lives in Chagford, Devon, is part of the Lead Ammunition Collective, which campaigned to end the sale of the toxic material and was awarded the RSPB Medal, the charity’s highest honour.
Known as “The Human Swan”, she is best known for flying a paramotor 4,300 miles (7000km) from Arctic Russia to the UK while tracking the migration of Bewick’s swans.
The Australian-born biologist said lead poisoning poses a major danger to birds across Europe and was one of the subjects she examined during her 2019 expedition.
Dench said: “Up to 100,000 water birds in the UK are expected to die each year from lead poisoning, and that’s maybe a million across Europe.
“It’s a really big effect and enough to be pushing some species towards extinction.”
Scientists and conservation groups have long warned that lead shotgun pellets can pollute habitats and damage wildlife after entering the environment.
Dench said many people did not understand the scale of the issue.
“Every time you shoot a cartridge there can be up to 300 small pellets of lead that are spread into nature,” she said.
“Overall in the UK every year that amounts to somewhere between 7,000 and 13,000 tonnes of lead being spread into nature.
“Birds, particularly water birds, will mistake it for food or grit and eat it, and that is ground down in their stomachs. That’s how they become lead poisoned.”
Deer manager Sharif Adams has already changed the ammunition he uses
Legislation banning the sale and use of lead shot in England, Wales and Scotland, external will be introduced from April 2029.
One person who has already moved away from lead ammunition is deer manager Sharif Adams, who works in woodland in the Teign Valley.
The chairman of the South West branch of the British Deer Society said switching to non-toxic ammunition was an easy choice.
“The deer management that I do is all conservation-focused,” he said.
“So it was a no-brainer to me. Moving away from a toxic substance to something less harmful makes a lot of sense.”
He said there were also practical reasons for the change, as game dealers are increasingly only taking deer shot with non-lead ammunition.
“Part of deer management is the venison food market, a really important part of it actually, and to be able to supply the human food chain with venison you need to be able to sell to the game dealers as well,” he said.
Prof Debbie Pain and Dr Ruth Cromie received the RSPB medal on behalf of The Lead Ammunition Collective on 3 October
The RSPB medal was presented to Dr Ruth Cromie and Prof Debbie Pain on behalf of the Lead Ammunition Collective at the charity’s annual general meeting earlier this month.
Dench said the award recognised an unusually wide partnership that had helped drive change.
“The RSPB Medal is a really big deal,” she said.
“It has been won by David Attenborough, it has been won by the King in the past.
“But it’s an even bigger deal that it’s recognising, on this occasion, not just us but a whole collective of people that you might not necessarily think of as working together for conservation.”