ABSTRACT
That sizeable populations of grit-ingesting birds may be continually succumbing to poisoning, illness, and death from the accidental ingestion of spent shot pellets lying on the ground at shooting ranges has been an expressed concern for multiple decades. It is true that thousands and millions of visible spent pellets lying atop the soil may abound in certain areas, presenting a highly accessible potential risk to these species. The suggested study, a field verification endeavor, aims to bring forward, in an unbiased fashion, the information to validate the phenomenon of birds often enough ingesting spent shot pellets. The study is necessarily a quantification effort for the behavioral phenomenon, with the specific goal of learning of the frequency with which grit-ingesting birds alight on the ground where significant stores of accessible pellets are present. Motion-triggered images should ideally be monitored over the course of a full year or at least for as many months as grit-ingesting birds are active in the region.
