Each year, men dressed in military style camouflage gear invade Victoria’s peaceful wetlands to shoot native birds, for fun. And each year volunteer rescuers and vets give up their time to try to save the wounded waterbirds from slow painful deaths. The enormous suffering involved in Victoria’s annual horror show, the damage to the environment, the disturbance to other wildlife and to humans living around those areas, have all been documented over many years.
Like many other Victorians, I find it incomprehensible that this cruel recreational activity has been allowed to continue for so long.
Volunteer vet Dr Natasha Bassett has described the start of the season as “a shock — you’re in this really beautiful wetland in the early morning and the ducks are peacefully doing their thing and then there’s just this crack of shots ringing out.”[1]
Shooters this year are prohibited from targeting the Blue-winged Shoveler and Hardhead and told to be alert to the potential presence of threatened Freckled Ducks.[2] But recreational shooters often miss their targets and regularly fail to distinguish between species, especially at a distance. Unsurprisingly, Blue-winged Shovelers, Hardhead and Freckled Duck species have all been found dead or wounded by rescuers in the first week of the 2023 season.
As former Queensland premier Peter Beattie noted in 2005, when announcing Queensland’s duck and quail shooting ban: “few modern hunters viewing a bird in flight are able to distinguish a species which can be shot from one which is protected.”[3]
In a submission to this inquiry one person writes: “despite having excellent eyesight there was no way I could identify a flying duck as to species, even after it was full daylight and long after shooting had commenced.”[4]
On just the first day of the 2023 season, Wildlife Victoria reported five protected ducks and three non-game species killed, along with three non-game species of waterfowl “dead upon arrival at the veterinary triage tent.”
Four blue-winged shovelers and one hardhead were brought to the Wildlife Victoria veterinary triage tent either dead on arrival or with lethal gunshot wounds. Both species are listed as threatened under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and are illegal to shoot. One of the blue-winged shovelers arrived semi butchered. The bird arrived with both wings removed, the breast flesh cut off the animal, and its chest skinned. An x-ray found the bird had been shot through the heart.[5]
After a week in-field for the start of the current season, Wildlife Victoria reported its veterinary team had seen 73 ducks come through the triage tent, including 8 threatened species. All were illegally left on the wetlands by shooters.[6] Each year many wounded birds escape into dense reeds and cannot be found, rescuers cannot be everywhere, and birds recovered will only amount to a fraction of the actual number of dead and wounded birds shooters leave behind.
The illegal behaviour witnessed in just the first week of the 2023 season will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the “illegal, unethical and irresponsible” behaviour of shooters, well known to occur over each duck shooting season.[7]
In 2013, Melbourne’s The Age newspaper reported on the “despicable, wanton carnage in at least one wetland” where whistling kites and black swans “were among the 800 bird carcasses left at a small wetland near Boort on day one of the shooting season,” along with 147 endangered freckled ducks. “Victoria, under the Baillieu and now the Napthine government, allows duck shooters into every corner of this state,” said the editorial, and duck shooting “serves no real purpose other than to stir the adrenalin of gumbooted shooters.”[8]
In 2017, the Coalition Against Duck Shooting delivered fifteen hundred dead birds to politicians, along with 10,000 spent shotgun cartridges.[9] The dead birds included 296 illegally shot protected species, of which 183 were rare Freckled Ducks and Blue-billed Ducks.[10]
In the aftermath of the 2017 season opening week, rescuers also discovered pits containing almost 200 ducks, evidence that shooters were killing many more than the allowed daily limit.[11]
A subsequent review into the regulatory body tasked with ensuring responsible duck hunting, found “non-compliance with hunting laws is commonplace and widespread,” and that “the GMA is widely perceived by its stakeholders and its own staff as either unable to ensure compliance… or to effectively sanction offenders when those laws are breached.”[12]
Based on the Game Management Authority’s (GMA) acknowledged wounding rate of between 6 and 40 percent and the reported total “harvest” figure of 262,567, RSPCA Victoria estimates the number of ducks wounded and not killed outright in the 2022 season was between 15,700 and 105,000.[13] The RSPCA also points to an x-ray study of trapped live ducks in Victoria, finding that between 6 percent and 19 percent had embedded shot.[14]
GMA’s waterfowl wounding monitoring in 2022, found 3.4 percent of captured ducks carried embedded pellets. Pacific Black Ducks were found to have the highest rate of pellet infliction with 6.5 percent carrying embedded pellets. First year ducks had almost three times the infliction rate of adult ducks.
GMA notes that these figures cannot be interpreted as the actual wounding rate, for reasons including studies showing the majority of wounded birds will have already died, and radiographs not detecting where pellets have passed through the body. Recent COVID-19 restrictions may also have influenced the detected level of infliction, in addition to “the limited number of study sites and lack of larger game duck species in the radiographed sample.”[15]
In 1986, Animal Liberation Victoria’s Patty Mark wrote in an article about the opening of the season that year, “our animal rescue team had all read the CSIRO Technical Report 1984 where hunters themselves estimate a cripple loss of 10 to 30 percent of birds shot.”[16]
In 2005, an editorial in The Age, under the headline Victoria’s Cruel Slaughter Resumes, explained “one duck is wounded but manages to fly off for every one retrieved. Many take days or weeks to die. Studies of tens of thousands of waterfowl found up to one in six had shot lodged in their bodies.” The editorial finished by saying, “one day we will look back and wonder how our Government permitted such cruel slaughter to go on for so long.”[17]
In 2023, the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) has joined the call to ban duck hunting in Victoria, pointing to a Victorian study reporting up to 33 percent of hunted birds were wounded but not retrieved “resulting in crippling injuries such as wing, bill and leg fractures.”
Former GMA board member and now AVA president, Dr Bronwyn Orr, says shooting ducks often results in non-fatal injuries and creates an “ethical animal-welfare problem.” Orr has called on the Victorian Government “to take swift action and follow the suite of other states and territories that have banned duck hunting altogether.”[18]
The harmful consequences of duck shooting also extend beyond Victoria’s environment and wildlife and into the lives of regional Victorians. Kerrie Allen from Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting has noted the overwhelming feedback received when surveying people in duck shooting locations was about “fears for safety, pellets landing on people’s roofs which collect their water supply, horses going through fences, children were traumatised.” Duck shooting, she said, is happening less than 30 metres from some back doors. “It’s not on. It’s unacceptable.”[19]
A survey in 2021, found 51.5 percent of people said they would be less likely to holiday in a regional town during the duck-shooting season.[20]
Torrumbarry resident Tuesday Browell, who lives near Richardson’s Lagoon, told the Herald Sun recently that locals were “devastated.”
“Many of us are still living in caravans because the floods destroyed our homes — before that we had Covid — and now this. This is what we have to put up with every year. I’ve been here 26 years and it’s just carnage. It’s like being at war … they’re shooting towards you, around your house.”[21]
The fight to protect Victoria’s waterbirds has been long and frustrating, blocked over and over by short sighted leaders unable to move beyond self-serving political agendas.
The first duck rescue team in 1986, involved Animal Liberation Victoria working with various groups, including the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, Bird Observers Club, Laurie Levy and the Coalition Against Duck Shooting, along with teams of rescuers across the state. On the 1986 opening weekend alone, volunteers “collected the bodies of 117 fully-protected animals including swans, turtles, ibis and endangered freckled ducks.”[22]
Joan Kirner, Victoria’s minister for conservation between 1985 and 1988, responded to concerned Victorians who wrote to her by saying she saw no justification for ending duck hunting while it was supported by the community and said that hunting wild ducks was “an activity which has been carried out since white settlement.”[23]
To state the obvious, just because an activity has been carried out since white settlement does not mean it is right or that it should continue, often the opposite. And surveys have shown repeatedly in recent years that duck shooting is not supported by most of the Victorian community.
In November 2007, research conducted by Roy Morgan reported a large majority of Victorians (75 percent) believed the shooting of native water birds for recreational purposes should be banned. The number increased to 87 percent when those surveyed were informed that “due to drought and climate change, the numbers of native water birds across eastern Australia have dropped by over 80 percent, that at least one in four native water birds shot at are wounded, and that duck shooting has been banned in WA, NSW and Queensland.”[24]
RSPCA Victoria points to research conducted by Kantar Public which found 68 percent of metropolitan residents and 60 percent in regional Victoria were opposed to duck hunting. RSPCA also highlights a study by RedBridge Group finding 29 percent of respondents who strongly support hunting also strongly support or support a ban on duck hunting.[25]
Another of Kirner’s justifications for allowing duck shooting to continue in the 1980s was that it was pursued “in every state in Australia.” In 2023, this is clearly no longer the case.
In 1990, the Western Australia Government took a strong stand against the obvious cruelty when announcing a ban on recreational duck shooting. Premier Carmen Lawrence said:
There is widespread opposition throughout the community to the cruelty and environmental damage caused by shooters. Evidence from previous seasons shows that injured ducks have been left to die, protected species have been shot and fragile wetlands have been polluted by lead and cartridges. Our community has reached a stage of enlightenment where it can no longer accept the institutionalised killing of native birds for recreation.[26]
In 1992, after the Supreme Court in Perth dismissed a challenge from recreational shooters, Western Australia became the first state to ban duck shooting. WA’s environment minister Bob Pearce said in a statement, “the State Government is opposed in principle to duck shooting as a sport and public opinion was fully behind the move to ban it. WA’s native wildlife should be protected, admired and respected, not shot for pleasure.”[27]
In Victoria in 1991, in spite of a Labor Party policy resolution to ban duck hunting, and most party members describing it as “cruel, barbaric and environmentally dangerous,”[28] the Victorian minister for conservation and environment, Steve Crabb, ruled out an end to duck shooting.[29] In the Victorian parliament, Liberal party MP Tom Austin suggested, ”the hunting fraternity has been able to hold the line” because of “the clout it has at the ballot box.”[30]
In 1992, The Age started to speak out against duck shooting and the position of the newspaper in this 1993 editorial is clear:
Duck shooting is not a sport, it is an obscenity… There is no possible justification for this annual killing spree. Regrettably, the Kennett Government does not see it this way. Instead, its new regulations are designed to help the shooters while deterring both the bird rescuers and the media… Those men who need guns to reassure themselves about their masculinity should be forced to look elsewhere for reassurance.[31]
In 1995, NSW premier Bob Carr was the next state leader to put an end to the cruelty. In a 2019 letter to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, Carr urged Andrews to also ban duck shooting, writing that duck shooting was “not a sport and the slaying of water fowl is not a measure of human skill.” Carr also noted that after his ban in NSW there had been “no negative response.”[32]
In 2002, Victoria’s Bracks government’s key animal welfare advisory committee met to review recent scientific studies on duck shooting and agreed to recommend that it be phased out.[33] But still it continued.
In 2003, parliamentary secretary for agriculture Geoff Howard wrote to environment minister John Thwaites asking him to consider a ban. “I believe that we should recognise that we are fortunate to have so many native birds … they should be able to be enjoyed peacefully rather than being shot for sport and I believe that the majority of the community would be of that view,” he wrote.[34] But still it continued.
In 2005, Queensland premier Peter Beattie announced his state would put an end to the cruelty: “it is time to ban this recreational shooting of ducks and quail. This is not an appropriate activity in contemporary life in the Smart State,” he said.[35]
Queensland’s environment minister Desley Boyle told Parliament that of the concerns raised with her, “overwhelmingly most people have concentrated on the cruelty, describing duck and quail shooting as ‘this unnecessary, barbaric pastime enjoyed by a small number of people who essentially shoot for fun’.”[36]
In December 2007, Labor’s Victorian environment minister Gavin Jennings announced the cancellation of the 2008 season, for the second year in a row, based on drought and low duck numbers.[37] But then in 2009, Jennings rejected his department’s recommendation to cancel the next season due to low bird numbers and instead relied on advice from the government’s Hunting Advisory Committee.[38] “Hunting groups dominate the committee,” said an Age newspaper editorial, noting the committee was chaired by Bill McGrath, a veteran of the National Party “which has made an issue of duck hunting in seats where Labor is vulnerable.” The Age noted that “the science is against Mr Jenning’s decision, which should be reversed.”[39]
A source from the Department of Sustainability and Environment told the Sydney Morning Herald the Brumby government’s justifications for allowing the 2009 season to go ahead were “illogical” and “we’ve got a season purely for political reasons contrary to any conservation reasons.”[40]
While leaders from both major parties have stubbornly refused to ban the cruel recreational activity, many politicians from all sides remain uncomfortable with the continuation of animal abuse disguised as “sport.”
In 2018, opposition Liberal MP James Newbury used his maiden speech to criticise duck shooting. “Victoria’s natural environment and wildlife are a unique part of this state’s identity and a modern Liberal Party must speak out on behalf of the promotion and preservation of them,” he said.[41] In 2021, Newbury told the ABC: “My community thinks duck hunting is barbaric and I’d say modern Victoria thinks the same. It’s absolutely time to understand that modern Victoria expects something different.’’[42]
But still the cruelty continues. And as I write I know shots will be firing, waterbirds and other wildlife will be terrified and suffering, while Victorians will be left utterly baffled as to how such a cruel and outdated form of recreation is allowed to exist in their “progressive” state in 2023.
We know many birds will be slaughtered for fun in the coming days and many others will be left to die from “shocking internal and nerve injuries as well as shattered and broken bones and smashed legs, wings and bills.” But what we don’t yet know, is when a Victorian leader will have the courage to stand up to a small group of men with guns and discover that the worst thing they will face is the gratitude of most Victorians who want to protect, not shoot, this continent’s precious wildlife.
[1] Vet furious as government announces duck hunt amid wildlife crisis, 26 February 2020, Yahoo, https://au.news.yahoo.com/duck-hunting-vet-hits-out-at-victorian-governments-decision-203034233.html
[2] GMA Fact Sheet, https://www.gma.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/924395/Fact-Sheet-2023-Duck-Season-January-2023.pdf
[3] Weekly Hansard, 10 August 2005, Queensland Parliament, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
[4] Submission 103
[5] Media Release, April 2023, Wildlife Victoria, https://www.wildlifevictoria.org.au/images/Publications/Media_Releases/Wildlife_Victoria_shares_findings_from_Day_1_of_2023_duck_hunting_season.pdf
[6] 3 May 2023, Wildlife Victoria, https://www.facebook.com/wildlifevictoria/
[7] Game hunting regulator allows duck hunters to flout laws, 1 March, 2018, The Age, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/game-hunting-regulator-allows-duck-hunters-to-flout-laws-20180301-p4z2dy.html
[8] Failure on so many levels, 14 May 2013, The Age
[9] 2017 Koorangie Marshes massacre, Coalition Against Duck Shooting, https://www.duck.org.au/2017-koorangie-marshes-massacre/
[10] Submission to the Inquiry into Auditor General Report №202: Meeting Obligations to Protect Ramsar Wetlands (2016), Coalition Against Duck Shooting, https://new.parliament.vic.gov.au/492ead/contentassets/258dd700d43a4207a8bec52fafcd35d6/submission-documents/362a.-coalition-against-duck-shooting-appx-1_redacted.pdf
see also https://www.duck.org.au/media-old/articles/2018-articles/
[11] Discovery of nearly 200 dead ducks dumped in pit reignites debate over hunting, 29 March 2017, ABC, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/illegal-duck-shooting-prompts-hunting-licence-arrangements/8396430
[12] Game hunting regulator allows duck hunters to flout laws, 1 March, 2018, The Age, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/game-hunting-regulator-allows-duck-hunters-to-flout-laws-20180301-p4z2dy.html
[13] Not all its quacked up to be… The truth about duck hunting, 7 February 2023, RSPCA Victoria, https://rspcavic.org/not-all-its-quacked-up-to-be-the-truth-about-duck-hunting/
[14] How many ducks and quail are wounded due to recreational hunting, RSPCA, https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/how-many-ducks-and-quail-are-wounded-due-to-recreational-hunting/#ftn4
[15] Monitoring trends in waterfowl wounding 2022, Game Management Authority, https://www.gma.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/938548/Wounding-Results-Report-2022-Final-Artwork-Low-Res-Email.pdf
[16] Duck Shooting — The Campaign hots up, Animal Liberation Magazine, April- June 1986, https://www.alv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1986-Duck-Shooting-Campaign-Feature-Animal-Liberation-Magazine.pdf
[17] Victoria’s cruel slaughter resumes, March 19, 2005, The Age, https://www.theage.com.au/opinion/victorias-cruel-slaughter-resumes-20050319-gdztdt.html
[18] AVA joins calls to ban duck hunting in Victoria, 17 Feb 2023, https://www.ava.com.au/news/waterfowl-hunting-update/
[19] Neither shooters nor activists pleased with shortened Victorian duck season. 26 February 2020, 3AW, https://www.3aw.com.au/neither-shooters-nor-activists-happy-with-shortened-victorian-duck-season/
[20] One-third back moves to ban duck shooting, survey shows, February 2, 2021, The Age, https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/one-third-back-moves-to-ban-duck-shooting-survey-shows-20210201-p56yh7.html
[21] Launch of duck hunting season enrages animal activists, 28 April 2023, Herald Sun, https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/endangered-species-under-fire-on-first-day-of-shooting-season/news-story/dc68d2cb0504b44c1624e1e1bb9a9740
[22] Duck Shooting — The Campaign hots up, Animal Liberation Magazine, April- June 1986, https://www.alv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1986-Duck-Shooting-Campaign-Feature-Animal-Liberation-Magazine.pdf
See also Animal Liberation Victoria Duck Rescue Timeline, https://www.alv.org.au/ducks/
[23]Duck Shooting — The Campaign hots up, Animal Liberation Magazine, April- June 1986, https://www.alv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1986-Duck-Shooting-Campaign-Feature-Animal-Liberation-Magazine.pdf
[24] Majority Of Victorians Want Duck Shooting Banned, 12 November 2007, Roy Morgan Research, https://web.archive.org/web/20131111074819/http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/finding-4239-201302262309
[25] Not all its quacked up to be… The truth about duck hunting, 7 February 2023, RSPCA Victoria, https://rspcavic.org/not-all-its-quacked-up-to-be-the-truth-about-duck-hunting/
[26] Media Statement Premier of Western Australia, 3 September 1990, Government of Western Australia, https://www.duck.org.au/banned-in-three-states/
[27] WA is the first State to ban duck shooting, 5 June 1992, Government of Western Australia, https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Lawrence/1992/06/WA-is-the-first-State-to-ban-duck-shooting.aspx
[28] Duck hunt goes on despite Labor policy, June 17, 1991, The Age
[29] Shooting ban on hold, 18 June 1991, The Canberra Times, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/118151540/13007123
[30]Hansard, Victorian Parliament, 17 September 1991, https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/volume-hansard/smaller/Hansard%2051%20LA%20V404%20Aug-Oct1991/VicHansard_19910917_19910919.pdf
[31] Duck shooting should be outlawed, Mar. 24, 1993, The Age
[32] Bob Carr urges Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to ban duck hunting, 18 August 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-18/bob-carr-urges--premier-daniel-andrews-to-ban-duck-hunting/11424242
[33] Ban urged on ‘cruel’ duck hunts, December 20, 2002, The Age, https://www.theage.com.au/national/ban-urged-on-cruel-duck-hunts-20021220-gduyjc.html
[34] Call for duck shooting ban splits country ALP, Nov. 4, 2003, The Age
[35] Hansard, Queensland Parliament, 10 August 2005, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
[36] Hansard, Queensland Parliament, 10 August 2005, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
[37]Victoria bans duck hunting season, December 19, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria-bans-duck-hunting-season-20071219-1hyk.html
[38] It’s ready, aim, fire for duck shooters, February 5, 2009, Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/national/its-ready-aim-fire-for-duck-shooters-20090204-7xxp.html
[39] Ducks pay high price for the coming election season, 12 Feb. 2009, The Age
[40] It’s ready, aim, fire for duck shooters, February 5, 2009, Sydney Morning Herald, https://www.smh.com.au/national/its-ready-aim-fire-for-duck-shooters-20090204-7xxp.html
[41] James Newbury First Speech, 19 December 2019, https://jamesnewbury.com.au/about-james/james-first-speech/
[42] Victorian duck hunting comes under pressure from across the political divide, 20 Jan 2021, ABC, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-20/pressure-builds-on-victorian-government-to-ban-duck-hunting/13070716?fbclid=IwAR28erhztI_UwaYtzSCqHIMgKkLnmm8gCs3UDnmDoIs6fYOmTCeWx_ddM6U
