A study recently done at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) found that lead bullets used for hunting moose, deer or elk, can be toxic for humans who eat the harvested meat and for scavenger animals who feast on the remains.
Dr. Adam Leontowich is an Associate Scientist at CLS and the lead author of the study into the size and spread of bullet fragments in big game shot by hunters and the risks associated with lead bullets.
Leontowich, who is from Ituna and a hunter in his spare time, says the inspiration came from shopping for ammo one day when he noticed a box of bullets labelled “lead-free”, spurring his curiosity.
“I kind of thought ‘what is this all about, I never heard of this before.’” Leontowich recalled as he then started to do some research prior to the study.
He found this wasn’t a new issue, as he discovered studies from 25 or more years ago. “There have been no studies that have shown that any person has ingested enough wild game contaminated with lead to even be acutely lead poisoned, never mind fatally poisoned.” noted Leontowich. “But for wildlife like bald eagles, crows and magpies, there’s been fatalities.
“For example, there’s a study in 1999 where the three provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta collected all the dead eagles that were passed to the Ministries of Environment there. The cause of death was studied and in 12 percent of the cases the eagles were found to have been lethally exposed to lead from presumably eating lead-containing gut piles.” he added.
Leontowich also said that while no amount of lead is good for consumption for humans, it can affect things like intelligence and development of children.
“You’re not going to drop dead from eating a piece of deer sausage but in the long-term no amount of lead is good to consume.” he continued.
Some countries have even taken action against lead bullets. According to an article on this very study on the Canadian Light Source website, “some countries like Sweden and Denmark, as well as the state of California, have banned lead rifle ammunition for hunting. In Canada, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island included warnings about the health and environmental risks of lead bullets in their 2021-22 hunting regulation handbooks.”
Leontowich said his research team went out onto land near the community of Hubbard, Saskatchewan to begin testing. They shot lead bullets into ballistic gel – similar density to flesh – with deer bone inside to simulate hunting.
Afterward, they took the samples to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon to look at the fragments through a medical X-Ray, then with synchrotron imaging at CLS for comparison. They found bullet fragments that were as small as a single human blood cell.
“I did expect that we would see more than what could be seen on a common medical chest X-Ray, I did expect to see more there, but the sheer smallness of them in size and the amount definitely surprised myself and my colleague.” Leontowich said of the findings.
Regarding a solution, he says there is one already there and you don’t even need to buy a new rifle for them.
“There are these all-copper bullets that are produced by all the major manufacturers, and they’re designed to expand just like a lead-core bullet would, but they don’t contain any lead.”
When asked if he was going to switch to a non-toxic bullet such as a copper one, Leontowich said he did make the change this past hunting season, but will still use lead bullets for target shooting at the range.
It’s also hoped that hunters will also switch like Leontowich has.
You can find the study here.