Polish Minister for the Environment: Introduce a moratorium on the shooting of wild birds
There are no good arguments for shooting wild birds for recreation - it's extremely cruel, it pollutes environment with toxic lead, it kills protected species and it is not an efficient way of feeding people.
Shooting birds should be banned as it's harmful to nature and to people. A moratorium should be introduced as a matter of urgency during which necessry changes in legislation can be made.
Shooting of wild birds contaminates environment with large quantities of toxic lead of which shot pellets are made. Estimates indicate that each year Polish hunters leave between 300 and 600 tonnes of lead in fields, wetlands and rivers. This is more than all Polish industry and transport combined. The spent lead accumulates over years, enters ecosystems and through waters, field crops, and grazing animals can poison people.
Large numbers of protected, often endangered birds are shot each year because most hunters are unable to identify species properly. This is especially true for geese and ducks. E.g. Lesser White-fronted goose can easily be mistaken for White-fronted goose. The latter is a hunted species, the former is a strictly protected species whose population in Europe is estmiated at about 50 breeding pairs only.
Birds shooting is an especially cruel passtime with a very large proportion of birds wounded and injured in course of any given hunt. For example It is estimated that up to 80% of geese which are shot with pellets are merely injured and not killed and therefore a large proportion of such birds will suffer a prolonged cruel death.
Legal systems in most democratic countries would never allow such treatment of animals bred for meet. How can we allow this to happen to intelligent creatures which are shot for sport?
Shooting wild birds can only be considered a passtime, a "recreation". In developed countries between one third and one fourth of all food produced goes to waste. We do not need to shoot wild birds to feed the hungry - we have enough food as it is.