Nearly 20 years after their ban, lead ammunition remains a persistent threat to the health of humans and birds.
The Camargue, an 85,000-hectare wetland in the Rhône delta, is a site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. During the winter, it is home to hundreds of thousands of waterbirds, most of which then migrate to the breeding grounds of Northern Europe. The spectacular concentrations of birds make it a popular area for birdwatchers and game hunters.
Despite a ban in France on hunting with lead ammunition in wetlands since 2006, waterbirds are still being contaminated by lead pellets. This is the finding of a new scientific study published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.
Analysis of more than 2,000 gizzards collected with the help of a network of 38 partner hunters shows that ducks continue to ingest lead pellets, which they use to grind food. One bird in eight analysed was affected, a rate that remained the same before and after the ban. Nor did the number of lead pellets per gizzard decrease over time.
This contamination reflects the persistent use of lead ammunition by many hunters. Although the level of toxic ammunition has fallen since 2006, the collection of nearly 4,000 cartridge cases fired in the Camargue shows that 50% of the cases found had contained lead shot.
According to Arnaud Béchet, director of research at the Tour du Valat and first author of the study, “it’s rather frustrating that after 60 years of work at the Tour du Valat that leaves no doubt about the harmful effects of lead ammunition, we find that the 2006 law has had almost no effect on the contamination of birds in the Camargue”.
The results of this new study show that contamination remains very high in certain species, such as the Mallard and the Northern Pintail, with more than one bird in four contaminated by at least one lead pellet. A single lead pellet in the gizzard is enough to increase a duck’s mortality rate by 20% from one year to the next. ‘In the Camargue, we found more than 100 pellets in a single mallard gizzard,’ notes Anthony Olivier, an engineer at the Tour du Valat and co-author of the study. So the ducks wintering in the Camargue continue to die of lead poisoning. But this contamination also poses a risk to human health, particularly for those who regularly eat game.
Although it has been eliminated from paints and fuels, 44,000 tonnes of lead are dumped into the environment every year in Europe through hunting and fishing. Yet alternatives do exist. As far as hunting is concerned, non-toxic ammunition is now available at prices that rival those of lead ammunition, and it has been shown that the performance of steel pellets is equivalent to that of lead pellets when fired at distances of less than 30 metres. ‘Even though many hunters now use non-toxic ammunition, it’s obviously still difficult for others to change their habits’, Anthony Olivier concludes.
Current regulations are very difficult to enforce, as they prohibit hunting in wetlands with lead ammunition, but allow lead to be carried and lead to be hunted for terrestrial game. According to Jean Jalbert, Managing Director of the Tour du Valat: ‘Denmark, which has completely banned lead ammunition, is the only country where contamination of waterbirds has fallen drastically. France and other European countries need to follow their example if we really want to stop contaminating our natural areas and endangering human health’.
A petition to encourage the European Union to follow the recommendation of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) along these lines has been launched by Birdlife International and is being relayed in France by the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO): available here.
DOI : Béchet, A., Olivier, A., Cavallo, F., Sauvajon, L., Champagnon, J., du Rau, P. D., & Mondain-Monval, J.-Y. (2025). Persistent lead poisoning of waterfowl in the Camargue (southern France) 10 years after the ban on the use of lead ammunition in wetlands. Conservation Science and Practice, e70045. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.70045
The Tour du Valat
The Tour du Valat is a research institute for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands, founded 70 years ago by Luc Hoffmann, who has developed his research activities for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands with the constant aim of reconciling man and nature. Convinced that the preservation of wetlands will only be possible if human activities and the protection of the natural heritage go hand in hand, the Tour du Valat has for many years been developing research and integrated management programmes that encourage exchanges between wetland users and scientists, mobilise a community of stakeholders and promote the benefits of wetlands to decision-makers and socio-economic players.
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