For decades duck shooters across the world used lead shot despite knowing full well that this killed many birds slowly and painfully long after the shooting stopped ... and the lead shot used during the past 100 years is still killing.  At Bool Lagoon during the 1990s, Animal Liberation rescuers caught a number of lead poisoned swans that were subsequently euthanased by a veterinarian with National Parks and Wildlife supervision. These animals were pale, weak and lethargic. The lead poisoning diagnosis was subsequently confirmed with an autopsy with National Parks and Wildlife officers observing.

Duck rescuers went to many parts of Bool Lagoon that the public, and even shooters, never see. We walked through tall and almost impenetrable reed stands because this is where wounded ducks will hide. Not only did we find wounded ducks, but also swan corpses.  One small patch of reeds was like a swan graveyard with perhaps a dozen corpses. 

Whether or not swans and other water birds ingest lead shot will depend on how deep the shot has been buried in the mud over time and a host of other factors. Weather events can expose long buried lead shot and birds will ingest it and die. This will largely go unnoticed because wetlands like Bool Lagoon are seldom observed with the level of detail required to see such things. Tourists view the area with binoculars from the road or hides. Shooters wander round the easy-access areas. Very few people go into the densely vegetated places which a slowly dieing animal seeks out.

Lead poisoning is in the news currently (following this link and reading is highly recommended) because of the death of thousands of Trumpeter swans in the US. Lead shot was banned in 1991 in the US after duck shooters fought for decades to continue using it before turning and pretending they were great conservationists who supported the introduction of non-toxic shot (usually steel, but other metals are used). US Scientists collected 2,200 Trumpeter swan carcases between 2000 and 2009 and 70 percent of the deaths were found to be lead related. This is just a sample and the tip of the iceberg. Of course, as I observed above, if you don't look, you won't see. In Australia, lead shot was banned in SA in 1994 and a phase out began in Victoria in 2001.  The slow and painful deaths of swans and other water birds will continue spasmodically for perhaps a century. A recent letter to the editor in the Messenger newspapers by hunter advocate Matthew Godson claimed that Animal Liberationists chased swans to exhaustion and the birds needed to be euthanased. I don't know if Matthew has seen a psychiatrist or psychologist for help with his obvious difficulty telling the truth, probably not.