WATERBIRDS IN FREEFALL
SUSTAINABILITY STUFF-UPS
LOCKING OUT THE VOTERS
This beautiful photo featured on the front page of Tarrangower Times, when community sought exclusion from the shooting. Along with many other groups and councils around the state, they're still seeking it.
Waterbirds in freefall
Our December newsletter reported sobering NSW Riverina duck counts; game ducks had declined 43% in a year.
Now, the 42nd East Australian Aerial Waterbird Survey (EAAWS) - the largest most long-term independent science available - is published and its findings are gut-wrenching.
Wetland area has shrunk dramatically and is well below long-term average.
Populations of all game duck species have crashed to below long-term averages. Most species show significant long-term decline.
Several species (Black Duck, Mountain Duck, Australasian Shoveler) have contracted in range.
Breeding has collapsed.
It's perplexing the "independent" regulator has not mentioned this dire environmental situation.
Victoria's "Duck Harvest Strategy"
The damning EAAWS provides overwhelming justification to cancel the impending "recreational" bird shoots. A deadly strain of H5N1 is at our door. We hope our pro-bird-hunting government won't deflect undue focus to its new "harvest strategy" instead, which remains obscure, highly controversial and without independent peer-review. In particular:
Wounding (non-kill) rates are factored in at 23% which is too low. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) show GMA admits it can be up to 60% or higher. In Denmark it was 100% (one bird wounded for each bird killed) before they implemented robust education and training and marksmanship tests.
Abundance estimates are based on counts of ducks in Victoria only, ignoring the fact birds fly across borders.
Bag limits can't be enforced given most shooting sites are not monitored.
Shorter shooting seasons and reduced shooting area are the only real tools available to control what is killed, as well as impacts on regional voters and visitors.
Hardhead and Pink-eared Ducks should be protected given their particularly low numbers. (We note South Australia is protecting them in 2025).
There is no strategy whatsoever for quail shooting.
You can see our submission to the government on these matters here.
Where's the accountability?
Despite numerous requests for it, there has never been stakeholder consultation regarding quail shooting, and no transparency from the government as to what quantitative long-term "science" is being used.
For several years we have asked for stakeholder consultation. The "independent" regulator first said it would not be done "as it has not been done in the past". The next year it said there was "not enough time". This year no reason has been given at all.
Four emails to the regulator asking for the long-term scientific quantitative data on stubble quail abundance and wounding rates and we are still waiting. It appears the regulator doesn't have such information, yet allows a full recreational quail shoot to take place each year regardless, including through the little bird's breeding periods - widely considered unsustainable and unethical.
This is the taxpayer-funded regulator that says - in response to an FOI request - "the Senior Management Team meetings are held fortnightly, but minutes are not recorded".
It's also the regulator in the media talking up the last shooting season, but failing to mention the season involved the lowest number of active shooters on record.
Sustainability stuff-ups
What the regulator has told us, is that it performs no checks for the presence of threatened species prior to quail shooting taking place.
Given the critically endangered Plains Wanderer looks like quail, cohabits the same areas, and quail shooters sit no species ID tests before they're allowed to head out blasting the birds in poor light, what could possibly go wrong?
We note the previous federal Coalition government was so concerned about the Plains Wanderer, it compiled a National Recovery Plan, acknowledging the little bird can "sometimes be killed during quail hunting". We are party agnostic, but it seems clear the state Labor government couldn't care less about environmental issues.
Who could miss the shock news that Victoria's Environment Minister over-ruled his own department, in leaving a threatened species on the hunt list, as well as controversial electronic duck callers banned elsewhere in the world?
Did the Minister just make a mistake in the rush? It's clear the hunting regulations were pushed through at lightning speed so hunters could hunt. (If they weren't signed off by the deadline, there would be no legal game hunting). It's a pity our much needed new Wildlife Act reforms - sitting on parliamentary Cabinet shelves since December 2021 - could not enjoy the same degree of urgency.
Government commitments yet to be fulfilled
The Allan government chose not to accept the key recommendation of the Parliamentary Inquiry, that is, to follow the lead of other states and ban recreational hunting of native birds. Instead it said it would implement "reforms" to ensure hunting is "safe and sustainable". Just weeks out from the 2025 shoots, this has not occurred.
Take for example, the promised "mandatory hunter education and training".
"Marksmanship proficiency is really critical...At the moment, you can be a hunter and the only test you have to meet is a waterfowl identification test...sitting in front of a computer won't cut it."
- Minister Steve Dimopoulos, The Age, January 2024
Documents obtained through FOI show recommendations from DJSR to the Minister, that mandatory education and training would be in place for all hunters prior to the 2025 duck and quail shooting. As at today, there has been no change to regulations to enforce such reform.
In the context of a commitment to safety and sustainability, let's also look at the first three findings of the Parliamentary Inquiry, which concerned the fact hunting is permitted in too vast an area to be able to monitor, and should be reduced.
Show us the money
Victorians are continually fed the tired old "economic" furphy as justification for why our state persists with this unpopular bloodsport. But no cost-benefit analysis has ever been done.
For comparison, Queensland and NSW banned recreational bird hunting decades ago. Both states are acing Victoria for tourism, in particular the highly lucrative domestic overnight nature-based market. Latest Tourism Australia data (year ending September 2024) shows Queensland enjoyed $12.8 billion on average the last 3 years, NSW $11.7 billion and Victoria $7 billion. The nature-based component (specified as bushwalking, birdwatching, whale or dolphin watching, visits to the beach, state or national parks, gardens or the reef) is responsible for approximately half the total tourism revenue arising from around 60 activities.
Locking out the voters
For sustainability, social and economic reasons, it's a no-brainer. The Victorian government must call off the impending bird shoots.
99.8% of Victorians don't engage in bird shooting yet are effectively locked out of over 50% of their public waterways for a quarter of the year due to gunfire. We anxiously await the government's decision.
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