HOW much lead gets eaten along with wild-shot game? Enough to poison regular eaters of some wild birds, thanks to fragments of lead too small to be picked out during a meal.
Debbie Pain of the in Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, and colleagues, bought wild-shot birds from supermarkets, game dealers and butchers across the UK. After X-raying them, they cooked them either in wine or cider or a pH-neutral preparation such as a cream sauce. As is traditional with game, only then did they pick out the larger, visible lead fragments.
Subsequent analysis of the deboned, pulverised meat revealed that just over three meals of woodcock in a week would take a 70-kilogram person over the lead-threshold set by United Nations bodies for most farmed animals. Red grouse, partridge and pheasant hit the limit with about 10 meals per week. Wood pigeon and mallard fans can rest easier, unless they eat 24 to 30 servings per week (PLoS ONE, ).
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The X-rays suggest the blame lies with small unnoticed pieces of shot.
鈥淧eople all over the world consume birds killed with lead shotgun pellets, so the work has wide implications,鈥� says of the Peregrine Fund in McArthur, California.
A recent report by the European Food Safety Authority found that harmful effects emerge well below the UN鈥檚 limits on lead consumption.
