Occurrence of lead poisoning in a wild pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)

Abstract

The authors believe this is the first report of lead poisoning of a wild pheasant in America, although two cases of lead poisoning on English game preserves have been reported (Calvert, 1876; Holland, 1882). These two reports gave no record of lead levels in tissue from the affected birds. A dead male pheasant, found at the Grizzly Island Waterfowl Management Area on December 7, 1963, showed no signs of having been shot. For approximately 2 months prior, the area had supported extensive waterfowl shooting. This random deposition of shot provided an easily accessible lead source. The specimen was extremely emaciated. Necropsy revealed an enlarged and distended proventriculus. The gall bladder was greatly enlarged. Due to the impacted proventriculus, there was no food in the gizzard or the intestinal tract. There were 29 lead shot or fragments thereof in the gizzard, along with a small amount of grit. The weight of this lead was 3.6 g. The keratinized lining of the gizzard was thickened and dark-green to black in color. A grayish discoloration of the intestines was observed. Basophilic strippling was not seen in the erythrocytes as the bird had been frozen, thus lacking the red cells. The dithizone method (Garner,more » 1957) was used in the extraction and quantitative tests to determine if lead were present in the bird's tissues, and 42 ppm was found in the breast tissue and 168 ppm in the liver. These are far above normal values which are equal to or less than 1 ppm for either breast or liver tissue. Mensch (unpulb. ms) using experimental pheasants and force-feeding them lead shot produced plumbism. The values of lead found was 50 and 143 ppm for breast and liver. It is possible that when pheasant plumbism does occur in areas of heavy shooting, carcasses are not found because of the dense habitat preferred.« less