Following the leader?
THE EU has voted to ban the use of lead shot within 300ft of any body of water or on any peatland. On September 3, the European Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Committee voted through the proposals, which will be ratified by 2021 and become law in EU states by 2023. Whether the ban applies to the UK will depend on how the Government legislates for REACH-related laws in the future.
Organisations such as BASC have hit back against the ban, describing it as ‘utterly unenforceable’, and saying that it may undermine the voluntary switch to non-lead shot that was announced earlier this year and supported by Defra. The UK already has bans on lead shot when shooting waterbirds, but the new EU restrictions would effectively make using lead anywhere in the country illegal.
Matt Ellis, BASC’s head of science, comments: ‘The EU restrictions are unenforceable and place shooters at risk of criminality if they fail to spot a puddle in the field. No side should be celebrating bad law. BASC will lobby the UK Government not to adopt this regulation.’
The move to restrict the use of lead shot comes after a report in 2018 from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that claimed banning lead would ‘reduce the mortality of an estimated one to two million birds, such as pheasants and partridges, that may inadvertently swallow the lead shot, or scavenge or prey on lead-poisoned birds in the terrestrial environment’. Although
