the times | Saturday December 18 2021 2GM 31
News
Pheasant meat sold by Waitrose and
Harrods is contaminated with toxic
lead despite the retailers having
promised to switch to selling “lead free”
game, tests have revealed.
Wild Justice, a campaign group
co-founded by the broadcaster Chris
Packham, bought 14 pheasant breasts
last month from Waitrose, below, and 15
whole pheasants from Harrods and
sent them for testing. The tests revealed
that 13 of the breasts from Waitrose
contained levels of lead in excess of the
legal limit for chicken, pork and beef.
One contained 186 times the limit and
the median level was 29 times the limit.
Ten of the Harrods pheasants were
over the lead limit and the median level
was 2.2 times the limit. Wild Justice also
sent 16 pheasant breasts from Sains-
bury’s for testing and 11 were
over the limit, with a medi-
an level of 16 times the
limit. Sainsbury’s had
not made a lead-free
promise.
There is no legal
limit for lead in game
but the Food Stan-
dards Agency says
exposure to it can
harm the developing
brain and nervous
system. It says cutting
down the amount of lead-shot
game eaten is especially important
for young children, pregnant women
and those trying to become pregnant.
Game shooters were using about
6,000 tonnes of lead ammunition a
year before the pandemic.
Lead shot left scattered across the
countryside is toxic to wildlife, with
tens of thousands birds dying from lead
poisoning each year according to the
Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Pack-
ham said: “The presence of lead-con-
taminated meat on supermarket
shelves is disgraceful. It’s a clear failure
of the regulatory system.”
Waitrose, the UK’s largest retailer of
Toxic lead found
in pheasant meat
from Waitrose
Ben Webster Environment Editor game, said in 2019 that it would stop
selling birds that had been shot with
lead ammunition from the end of 2020.
It delayed implementing the pledge,
blaming the pandemic, but vowed that
more than half its game would be lead-
free in the 2020-21 shooting season and
no birds would be shot with lead this
season, which began on October 1.
Last season, Waitrose pheasant
carried a label warning that it might
contain lead shot and describing the
health risks. This season the labels do
not mention lead or the health risks,
instead saying: “May contain shot.”
Waitrose said its “lead free” promise re-
ferred to the use of lead ammunition
and it believed the lead found in the
breasts had been consumed by the
pheasants. It said: “We strongly refute
any suggestion that our shoots are us-
ing lead ammunition. Our under-
standing is that no shot was
found in the Waitrose
game tested and we are
confident that these re-
sults are explained by
environmental resi-
dues.” It said it had
stopped mentioning
lead on labels
“because we elimi-
nated lead shot from
our supply chain”.
Dr Mark Taggart, who
tested the birds at the En-
vironmental Research Insti-
tute at the University of the High-
lands and Islands, said the most likely
explanation for the lead in the Waitrose
pheasant was that at least some of the
birds had been shot with lead shot. He
said: “It is unlikely that the more elevat-
ed lead levels were caused by birds con-
suming lead in the countryside.”
Harrods said it had not been possible
to fulfil its “lead-free guarantee for all
lowland birds” this year due to the pan-
demic, and low levels of birds in estates.
Sainsbury’s said it supported the
shooting industry’s “five-year plan to
remove lead from UK game shoots”.
Packham warning, page 25
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ld dIldaggressiveness and
testosterone levels rose
as their pregnancies
progressed.
“Once born, their
pups were also
aggressive, furiously
demanding care and
feeding from the
subordinates like
spoiled little brats,” the
researchers write.
Some matriarchs
were given flutamide, a
testosterone-receptor
blocker, and did not
shove, bite, or growl as
much. “Subordinates
stopped being so
deferential. Their boss
had lost her edge,”
researchers said.behaviour throughout
their pregnancies and
measured testosterone
levels in blood and
droppings.
“In non-pregnant
matriarchs,
testosterone values are
equivalent to the
males’. But when
matriarchs get
pregnant, they ramp
up,” Drea said.
The matriarchs’about helping others.
This study is showing
that co-operation can
arise through
aggressive means.”
The research team
studied 22 clans of
meerkats at the
Kuruman River
Reserve. They looked
at the matriarchs’T
ypically it’s
the aggression
of the alpha
male that is
fuelled by
ultra-high levels of
testosterone (Rhys
Blakely writes).
But for one species
in the Kalahari Desert,
Africa, the hormone is
crucial to the success
of its brutal female
leaders, a study shows.
Each meerkat
society has a boss: the
matriarch. With her
mate she rules over a
group of subordinate
females and males with
an iron paw.
Her pups will be
raised not by her but
by other adults in her
community and to
ensure they give their
undivided attention,
she will attack
pregnant subordinates,
expelling them from
the group or killing
their newborns.
The study, in Nature
Communications,
sheds light on how
these meerkat females
maintain their rule of
fear through sky-high
levels of testosterone.
“We always think of
male competition
being driven by
testosterone, but here
we’re showing that it’s
driving female
competition too,”
Christine Drea, of
Duke University in
North Carolina, said.
“When people think
about co-operation,
they usually thinkMeerkat matriarchs
are ready for a fight
YU FANGPING/VCG/GETTY IMAGES
Rising testosterone
levels in pregnancy
fuel aggression and are
the key to matriarchs
in meerkat clans
holding on to power,
a study suggests