Why should lead bullets be banned for deer hunters?

IN the proposed Wildlife (Game) Regulations 2024, one of the key reforms is the phasing out of lead-based ammunitions in game hunting. According to the Engage Victoria website, this reform is “to mitigate environmental impacts by phasing out toxic lead ammunition from all game hunting.”

A study from 2022 titled ‘Highlighting the risk of environmental lead contamination for deer management in Australia’, showed the effects of lead bullet fragmentation on carcass contamination.

The study, conducted in 2021 and 2022, looked at lead-based and lead-free ammunition in a hog deer culling program. The ammunition used was .308 Winchesters, and hog deer were specifically chosen for their smaller size, which allowed them to be x-rayed in the field.

It was found in the study that animals shot with lead bullets featured a greater spread of bullet fragments within the carcass. From this, concerns arose around the consumption of potentially lead-infused meat by humans, as well as the impacts on predators such as eagles and dingoes which eat the lead-infused carcass.

What’s important at this stage is considering the difference between lead and copper ammunition, with the latter being touted as the viable replacement for lead ammunition.

Lead bullets are created by combining a soft lead core with a harder copper outer jacket and expand or fragment when punching into an animal. This causes greater damage, and more likelihood of an instant humane kill.

On the other hand, copper bullets are solid, being made only of copper with no jacket. This means that they stay in one piece as they pierce into an animal, leading to smaller wound cavities and less chance of an instant kill without millimetre-perfect accuracy.

Copper bullets are better for punching through thick bone and muscle and are..