Lead bullet fragments in venison from rifle-killed deer: potential for human dietary exposure

Overview

Hunt and colleagues radiographed rifle-killed white-tailed deer carcasses and commercially processed venison packages to test whether standard lead-based bullets leave fragments in edible meat. The study reports direct occurrence evidence for projectile-derived lead fragments in ground venison, plus ICP confirmation of lead in excised radiodense fragments. A separate swine feeding experiment tested bioavailability; those blood-lead results are exposure context rather than product concentration measurements.

Key numbers

• Article identity: PLoS ONE 4(4), article e5330, DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0005330. The local PDF is a reproduction in Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans, with proceedings DOI 10.4080/ilsa.2009.0112.
• Deer sample frame: 30 eviscerated white-tailed deer shot by licensed hunters in Sheridan County, Wyoming in November 2007; all bullets were 7-mm Remington Magnum, 150 grains, 9720 mg, with a lead core comprising 68% of bullet mass and a copper jacket comprising 32%.
• Carcass radiographs: all 30 carcasses showed metal fragments; the reported central count was 136 fragments, with a range of 15-409; fragment-cluster distances averaged 24 cm with range ± SD 5-43 ± 9 cm, and maximum single-fragment separation was 45 cm.
• Processed ground venison: fluoroscopy found visible metal fragments in ground meat from 24 (80%) of the 30 deer. At least one fragment was visible in 74 (32%) of 234 ground-meat packages; 160 (68%) had no visible fragments, 46 (20%) had one, 16 (7%) had two, and 12 (5%) had 3-8 fragments.
• Package-level distribution: an average of 32% of ground-meat packages per deer showed metal fragments, with N = 3-15 packages per deer, mean 7.8, and range 0-100% of packages.
• Aggregate ground-meat particles: the study observed 155 metal particles in ground-meat packages, equal to 3.1% of the 5074 particles counted in carcass radiographs.
• Processed loin steaks: among 16 deer carcasses with metal fragments near the spine, 4 deer (25% of selected deer) and 8% of 49 scanned loin-steak packages showed fragments; package fragment counts were 1-9.
• ICP confirmation: ICP analysis of radiodense fragments from ground meat packages from 13 deer identified lead in 25 (93%) of 27 samples. Aggregate lead fragment mass per package averaged 17.2 mg, with range ± SD 0.2-168 ± 39.8 mg, reported as 0.03% of the lead component of bullet mass.
• Background shank tissue: unprocessed muscle collected from the shank and away from the bullet path in the same 13 deer was below the 2.0 µg/g detection limit for lead.
• Swine bioavailability context: 8 pigs received venison over two feedings; 4 received fragment-containing venison and 4 received venison without fluoroscopically visible fragments from the same deer. The total lead fed to each pig was unknown; similar packages in the study contained 0.2-168 mg of lead, with median 4.2 mg.
• Blood-lead context: control pigs ranged from below the 0.5 µg/dL ICP-MS detection level to 1.2 µg/dL, with mean ± SD 0.63 ± 0.19 µg/dL. Fragment-fed pigs peaked at mean 2.29 µg/dL on day 2, with maximum 3.8 µg/dL, and were significantly higher than controls on days 1, 2, and 3.

Methods (brief)

Hunters killed 30 white-tailed deer under normal hunting conditions; each carcass was taken to a different commercial processor in Wyoming for normal boneless steaks and 2-pound (0.91 kg) ground-meat packages. The authors radiographed wound channels, scanned processed ground meat and selected loin-steak packages using digital radiography/fluoroscopy, excised visible radiodense fragments from selected packages, and measured lead and copper by ICP after nitric-acid digestion with a 2 µg/g lower detection limit. Lead isotope ratios were measured by MC-ICP-MS to compare meat, bullet, and bone lead. In the bioavailability experiment, blood lead was measured by ICP-MS with a 0.5 µg/dL lower detection limit and analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA.

Related evidence

• Lead
• Meat and poultry
• Meat and Poultry
• Game meats (venison, bison, rabbit)

Update history

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