Wednesday 20 January 2010

Abstracts: Long-Term Persistence of Spent Lead Shot in Tundra Wetlands

From JWM,  Flint PL, Schamber JL (2010) Long-Term Persistence of Spent Lead Shot in Tundra Wetlands. Journal of Wildlife Management: Vol. 74, No. 1 pp. 148–151 DOI: 10.2193/2008-494.


We seeded experimental plots with number 4 lead pellets and sampled these plots for 10 years to assess the settlement rate of pellets in tundra wetland types commonly used by foraging waterfowl. After 10 years, about 10% of pellets remained within 6 cm of the surface, but >50% remained within 10 cm. We predict that spent lead pellets will eventually become unavailable to waterfowl; however, it will likely require >25 years for all pellets to exceed depths at which waterfowl species may forage.
It'd suggest we're not being conservative enough in controlling lead shot in other areas. Despite recent efforts to step up lead shot control in the YK, it's still 25 years out before it ceases to be a human and wildlife hazard.

4 comments:

Arvay said...

You win the "most diverse topics" award of blogs I frequent. :)

TwoYaks said...

Ha! :D I hope not too diverse. I want wildlife and science to be kinda what it's about. But I get blog-ADD so often... :P

Arvay said...

No, it's fantastic!

Arvay said...

Although the non-local photos do kind of surprise me... but I enjoy them as well. :)


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