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'Greener' Duck Hunting Ammo: Depleted Uranium
By David Hambling EmailJune 12, 2008 | 2:15:00 AMCategories: Ammo and Munitions, Bizarro

In_1106_02a The debate about depleted uranium ammunition as an environmental hazard gets a bizarre new spin from Marc Abrahams of the Annals of Improbable Research. Abrahams turned up a paper which concludes that depleted uranium, of all things, might make an environmentally friendly alternative to lead shot for duck hunters.

As he explains in The Guardian:


The recommendation, published in 1983 in the Journal of Wildlife Management, has not been much disputed. The study's authors, biologists Susan Haseltine and Louis Sileo, were based at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre in Laurel, Maryland.

Lead shot is dangerous for ducks, especially if it hits them. When it doesn't hit a duck (or another hunter, as sometimes happens), the shot falls into the wetlands. The lead leaches into the muck, slowly poisoning any ducks that have managed to avoid being shot.

In many hunting areas, lead shot is verboten. At the time of the study, steel was being touted as the best alternative to lead. But Haseltine and Sileo pointed out its drawbacks. "Steel shot shells are more expensive than lead shot shells when purchased in a retail outlet," they wrote. "They cannot be used in all guns and have not been well received by some hunters, who question their performance on ducks and geese."

Depleted uranium (DU) is probably best known for its use in anti-tank rounds. And it's the subject of more than a little controversy over its possibly-toxic health effects. The researchers note, however, that uranium may not be very poisonous even to a duck that, of its own accord, swallows some in pellet form. That is what Haseltine and Sileo sought to verify.
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GERMANY