General News
27 February, 2023
Local wildlife rescuer “baffled” to see green light given to duck hunting season
Despite strong opposition, Victoria’s 2023 duck hunting season has received the green light from the State Government — leaving animal rescuers and wildlife support groups disappointed. Last Friday, the Game Management Authority (GMA) confirmed...
Despite strong opposition, Victoria’s 2023 duck hunting season has received the green light from the State Government — leaving animal rescuers and wildlife support groups disappointed.
Last Friday, the Game Management Authority (GMA) confirmed that the season would go ahead with changes to times and daily bag limits.
Set to run for about five weeks, the season will start at 8 am and close 30 minutes after sunset each day from April 26 to May 30 inclusive. The current season is shorter than last year which ran for around three months from the middle of March to mid-June.
In line with previous season’s arrangements, the bag limit is set at four birds per day and the threatened Blue-winged Shoveler and Hardhead species are not allowed to be hunted.
While the duration has been shortened, local rescuer India Armstrong from Central Goldfields Wildlife Rescue said the season needed to be banned altogether.
“I am very disappointed and baffled — it seemed like this year the government may not go ahead with the season. The late announcement of the season made a lot of us who were pushing against the hunting, quite hopeful,” she said.
“I’m in disbelief that it’s going ahead, I am strongly opposed against the duck season here in Victoria.”
Citing several reasons in support of a complete ban on hunting, Ms Armstrong said the recent incident involving over 750 birds that died after being infected by avian botulism at Bells Swamp Nature Reserve, should have persuaded the government to reconsider its decision.
“I just have no words — the season is still going ahead especially with around 700 and counting, dead native waterbirds at Bells Swamp,” she said.
“At the moment all wildlife rescuers and duck rescuers are exhausted from the efforts out at the swamp and so they’re going straight from there to the duck hunting season.
“It puts a strain on all of us and we can’t cover all the wetlands as much as we’d like to — it’s just absolutely horrific that every single year the government allows this and every single year hundreds of waterbirds are left wounded to die out in the wetlands.”
Although this hunting season will go ahead as planned, given its contested nature, the State Government has moved to set up a Legislative Council Select Committee to examine recreational native bird hunting in Victoria.
A statement released by the government last week noted that the relevant body would have “wide-ranging terms of reference” and will also hold public hearings involving hunting groups, animal welfare organisations and regional communities.
“I am hoping that this committee has a broad range of people on it. Hopefully they have veterinary professionals, people interested in wildlife, the people doing the research in these areas as well as people who have seen what happens out on the wetlands firsthand,” Ms Armstrong said.
“There’s definitely not enough enforcement out there in the wetlands. We have our wildlife officers, as well as GMA who are out there to regulate what’s going on but there’s not enough of those members to patrol every wetland for the duration of the whole season.
“We need to take into account the numbers of native water birds and also what we’re doing to them.”
According to estimates published by the RSPCA, only 0.17 percent of the Victorian population actively participates in duck hunting.
RSPCA’s data also indicates that a ban on duck hunting will have negligible impact on the economy due to the extremely limited participation rate.
Meanwhile, the GMA is warning against illegal hunting and partaking in irresponsible behaviours which include, but is not limited to, hunting or destroying threatened wildlife, hunting in prohibited areas and failing to immediately retrieve a downed bird.
The public is being urged to report any incidents of this kind to the authority through its website www.gma.vic.gov.au or the Customer Service Centre on 136 186 or by contacting Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.