Eating what you hunt and lead poisoning

Folks have been putting food on the table for many, many years using lead. I would bet that there is way more risk of dying in a car crash.. but that don't stop us from driving them. Gotta get there and ya gotta eat.
I would venture a guess that there are alot worse things that we let into our bodies and just don't think about.

I don't know about Europe, but I think we have more lead in our water than anything we would come across eating.

Apologize for the opinion.

Rats of the sky ..

Pigeon is a filthy bird . Notice how it thrives in filth . Like cesspool big cities in pools of filth. You see 1O00's in dirty ny city , sheetcargo, or filthadelpha but out in a clean rual area hardly any . Then you got to think they migrated from a filthy area/ just passing through to then next dirty place .

Now at a landfill you don't see many cause the seagulls run them off there turff ,

A bird holds poisons / toxins a long time in there bodies . People use to poison others by feeding a chicken or pigeon poison then cooking and feeding it to the person . ( Middle ages thing)

Anyone eat urban backyard squirrels?

BlackICE said:

Anyone eat urban backyard squirrels?

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Not so much any more, as I get country squirrels up here. But when I lived in Metairie, Louisiana, I'd shoot the squirrels eating the pecans in my neighbor's pecan tree so's they'd fall in my yard. Had me many a pecan-fed squirrel that way.
I was using a Benjamin 397 back then and I would reckon it was doing somewhere around 650 FPS on 8 pumps with a 10gr pellet. I went for head shots, but didn't shy away from heart/lung if I was inside of 20 yards. I don't recall any that didn't have entry and exit wounds. I never found any lead fragments (don't mean there weren't any, but I feel great!) in the meat. If you're using something higher powered and "hunting" ammo designed to fragment, there might be cause for concern. But if you're using plain domed lead pellets at a power level that isn't completely insane for taking a squirrel, I don't think there's much to worry about. I didn't have the game tested in a lab or anything, but I never thought twice about eating a squirrel unless it was roadkill. And southern, pecan-fed squirrels are an awesome meal!

I've shot 72 squirrels with my airguns, about half head shots and half body shots. So maybe three dozen body shots. I've eaten all most all of them. I get a physical each year and my blood work is great. No issues at all. I am obviously not eating squirrels every day or even every week, even during squirrel season. The available evidence says the little bit of potentially "tainted" meat I eat is not harming me. Years ago I also ate quail and pheasants killed by shotgun pellets. That seems like it would introduce more lead into the meat but there were no signs anybody was injured. All my extended family ate this sort of meat occasionally.

There are also simple extra steps you can take if you are concerned. Like throw the meat around the wound away. It tends to be loaded with blood so it may not be the tastiest anyway. There won't be any lead at all anywhere else.

Lead poisoning is a problem for some but the only cases I am aware of came from children eating lead paint or people served by water systems with lead piping. It can be harmful but it seems to take regular exposure. It accumulates.

Use to eat duck or dove whatever shot with bird shot and everyone had a napkin with the shot picked out when eating .. a single slug like bullet or pellet eady yo glean out #8 bird shot not so .

I guess anymore micro plastic in everything is now a bigger risk. . no gleaning that out easy ..lol

I do not eat rodents of any form.

if your worried just get the pellet out when you clean the bird .

This was the most common sense article I found. Some were obviously biased toward eliminating lead ammunition. Probably because lead poisoning is more of a concern to wild animals consuming meat with lead fragments in it. If you only skim the article you will miss the message.

Airgun pellets were not discussed in any article I found. Probably because it is not mainstream hunting to most people. I doubt there is much fragmentation of lead pellets with airgun velocities.

If your that much of a worrywart, don't consume your kills, use alloy pellets, or stop shooting game animals.

I may have read that article. If not, I read a similar one. The data centers around birds of prey that get to go to the Vet because they have lead poisoning from eating dead animals with lead in them. Some of the exposure seems to be from people unethically using very rapidly expanding bullets meant for ground squirrels on big game. As long as you don't hit anything bigger than a rib I understand it can result in a very quick kill. If you hit the shoulder the animal will die a slow and gruesome death. But if you care mainly about raptors, the rapidly expanding bullet throws fragments in a relatively wide area of the animal something like a shotgun loaded with shot would. So the lead the raptor eats increases a lot.

The only applicable thing I can think of from this sort of data concerns those who do not want pass through of their airgun projectile. Pass through can damage unintended targets so I can see a valid reason for the concern but if the projectile is lead and still in the animal and you do not dispose of the carcase you may poison another animal. Probably insignificant if it's a squirrel or two. If it's dozens, possibly not insignificant. I think with a pass through it's about like me eating a squirrel and I don't see any cause for concern.

Moke said:

I do not eat rodents of any form.

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More for me!

There was a study on lead in children in Mt Isa, Qld, Australia (large mine and lead smelter) that found that blood lead levels were just over 5 ug/L, and that was in a situation where the emission controls were ignored. So this event was unusual in terms of exposure.

Even if you have lead in your pipes, the odds are that any lead you come into contact with won't be in a form that is bioavailable (and it would be extremely unlikely due to changes to laws around the world regarding lead pipes in the last 50 years).

Health NSW says that 5 ug/L (ppb) is reportable, with 10 ug/L being the level that they are concerned that you might start to suffer symptoms.

Again, I seriously doubt that you are at any risk of significant lead exposure.

Solid lead chunks dont really "season" the meat with the special shiny gray salt.
Fumes, fine fine powders or salts of lead. Elemental forms pose more of a risk.
Then again I thought I had dinner with John Wilkes booth last night in the belly of the stay puft marshmallow man. So who knows

BlackICE said:

Anyone eat urban backyard squirrels?

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Yep.
I was raised on them.
My grandfather was 1/2 Native (?) American and hunting regulations did not apply.
We ate everything that walked, flew and swam.
I turned 80 last Sunday and still eat the tree rats!

Frank in Fairfield said:

Yep.
I was raised on them.
My grandfather was 1/2 Native (?) American and hunting regulations did not apply.
We ate everything that walked, flew and swam.
I turned 80 last Sunday and still eat the tree rats!

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Going to start eating more.

I’ve lived for 48 years with lead in my body. I think shooting a tree rat with a lead pellet isn’t going to a darn thing.

@bravenunny This was part of supper this evening.



This is a cottontail rabbit I’ve had on ice for couple of years. I may have headshot it, but with pellets I don’t always cut out the POI especially if it was a pass through. If I wreaked a joint or broke several bones I’ll cut some bloodshot meat out. I’m not that concerned about it as long as there aren’t visible lead fragments in the carcass.

You wanted an article? Here’s one.