Gareth Hunter, [19 Jul 2023 at 11:25:37]: Morning guys. Just a quick question. Waterfowl culled by shotgun; provided the carcass does not appear to have any or has a few easily removable pellets on x-rays, could they be fed to mammalian carnivores? It would obviously be best not to, but what would the likelihood of significant toxicity be from any residues? It would be in a controlled environment, so the risk of any birds or other scavengers getting hold of the birds would be very low. Erik Verrynne, [19 Jul 2023 at 11:41:12]: Hi Gareth. How large are the carnivores? Research has shown that bullet tracts also contain some lead. I am not sure if this applies to shotgun pellets. My opinion is that the risk is minimal provided the pellets are all removed, the mammals exceed 10kg and or it is infrequent feeding events Gareth Hunter, [19 Jul 2023 at 11:47:10]: Thanks Eric. It would be for the smaller carnivores like serval up to the largest such as tigers. It would be very infrequent. Initially the idea was to use for enrichment, but may be better to freeze and reserve for any emergency periods when there may not be other food available. Erik Verrynne, [19 Jul 2023 at 11:53:11]: That should be fine. It would be interesting to test blood lead levels before anyway. I suspect we have an additional environmental source of lead that we do not know of. Gareth Hunter, [19 Jul 2023 at 12:02:14]: Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. Thanks Erik. Andy Fraser, [19 Jul 2023 at 13:14:31]: Gareth I wouldn't feed birds shot by lead shot from a shotgun - the risk is way too big It's extremely labour intensive to remove all the pellets. Copper or brass .22 rounds are an optional alternative Gareth Hunter, [19 Jul 2023 at 15:43:27]: Thanks Andy. Appreciated. We had a donation of these birds after the event, so yeah, unfortunately didn’t have control over the ammunition. I agree it’s labour intensive, and one should definitely discard carcasses with loads of lead. I was just wondering about those carcasses with apparently a lot less. Compare the 2 photos above. But yeah. Probably better to avoid feeding them Willem Burger, [28 Jul 2023 at 23:12:38]: Definitely not for cheetahs. They are extremely sensitive to the slightest of lead traces. Even after you removed pellets or lead bullet, a huge amount of microscopic lead is left in the percussion zone.
