The International Olympic Committee (IOC) deserves no medals for its failure to ban lead shot from shooting events during the 2016 Games in Rio, says a University of Guelph professor.
Despite repeated calls to use non-toxic, lead-free ammunition during Olympic events and training, the IOC continues to require lead shot for the Games, according to Vernon Thomas, professor emeritus in integrative biology.
In a paper published this past spring in the journal Environmental Policy and Law, Thomas and Raimon Guitart, a toxicologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, say lead shot also threatens the health of people eating hunted game meat – a “serious and preventable problem,” says Thomas.
The paper urges the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to ban lead use in hunting and outdoor shooting.
Thomas says lead shot used in skeet and trap shooting training and competition by Olympic athletes, as well as in sport hunting and shooting, produces tens of thousands of tons of ammunition each year that threatens the environment and human and wildlife health.
Left uncollected at outdoor shooting ranges, many lead pellets enter the environment and may be ingested by birds and animals. Lead may also pose a health risk for sport hunters eating game meat.
Their paper says all three international groups have listed lead as a toxic substance and promoted other efforts to reduce human exposure.
“There’s a lack of consistency in policy,” says Thomas.
He says UNEP is a partner with the IOC, whose charter encourages concern for environmental issues and sustainable development.
He has repeatedly urged authorities to ban lead shot at the Olympics. In 2014, he co-authored a paper in the same journal urging the use of non-toxic shot for Olympic competition and training.
Thomas says steel shot cartridges are a viable non-toxic alternative.
He says his research has provoked no response from regulatory authorities or from sport governing bodies. The International Shooting Sport Federation, which oversees Olympic qualifying and competitive shooting, limits competitors to using lead ammunition.