Submission to the South Australia Select Committee Inquiry into the Hunting of Native Birds
Like most Australians, I find it incomprehensible that the cruel recreational activity of shooting native birds has been allowed to continue for so long in any Australian state.
Each year, men dressed in military style camouflage gear invade 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.[1] The enormous suffering involved, the damage to the environment, the disturbance to other wildlife and to humans living around those areas, have all been documented over many years in states where recreational duck shooting occurs.
Australians have consistently made clear that they want duck shooting banned around the country. In South Australia, research conducted in 2020 found that when respondents learned of the high rate of birds that are wounded but not killed outright, “almost three quarters wanted duck and quail hunting stopped.”[2] The same ReachTEL poll also found seven in ten respondents would be deterred from visiting an area with shooters present.
In 2018, in South Australia, the ABC reported on a group of campers near Lake George at Beachport leaving a camping ground when shooters were firing nearby.[3]
In 2023, after the opening weekend in South Australia, an Adelaide resident, Kerry, who had travelled to witness and film the shooting of wildlife, remarked: “Everyone knows to stay away. It’s not safe and the sound of gunshots isn’t pleasant. One minute you’re hearing the beautiful sound of hundreds of birds making their natural sounds in their natural habitat, and then every now and again you have this ringing out of guns.”[4]
The lack of adequate monitoring of wetlands during shooting season means there is no way of knowing how many non-target and threatened species are shot each year or how many birds are left to die slow painful deaths. RSPCA South Australia points to the government commissioned review of Victoria’s Game Management Authority finding that GMA “was unable to ensure compliance with hunting laws” and notes that “there is little evidence to indicate the SA regulator, South Australia’s Department for Environment and Water, does not face the same compliance problem.”[5]
In a submission to Victoria’s current native bird shooting 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.” [6]
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.”[7]
On just the first day of the 2023 Victorian duck shooting 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.[8]
After a week in-field for the start of the current Victorian 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.[9]
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 the shooters leave behind. The same issues apply whether the ducks are shot on the South Australia side of the border or in Victoria.
Footage from the South Australia opening weekend of this year’s duck shooting season, raised many concerns for the RSPCA and other groups including that “in a number of instances, birds appear to be left alive bleeding with shattered bones for minutes before they are put out of their misery.”[10]
RSPCA South Australia spokesperson Carolyn Jones suggested that humanely killing the injured birds did not seem a priority for hunters in the footage shot, “indeed, it seems they are quite happy to shoot or go and retrieve decoy ducks — do anything but retrieve those wounded birds and put them out of their misery,” she said.
The video also reportedly shows a hunter stomping on a wounded seagull — a protected species. The seagull was later found buried and taken to a vet. “We took it to a vet in Adelaide who X-rayed and, yes, indeed, there was a pellet in the throat of the seagull,” said Suzanne Pope.[11]
“Seeing an injured duck fluttering helplessly in the water or on the ground, or being held up alive as a hunting dog snaps at it, is something you never forget,” Dr Rebekah Eyers, animal welfare attorney for RSPCA SA, told the media. “Our state’s native birds are protected species — it’s really shocking that we remove that protection four months a year to let shooters in their habitats.”[12]
Based on the Victorian 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 Victorian 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] The same will no doubt be wondered about the government of South Australia.
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]
It is time for South Australia and Victoria to join the governments of other states and finally ban this cruel bit of fun for a bunch of mostly men.
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.[19]
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.”[20]
In 1992, Melbourne’s The Age started to speak out against duck shooting and the position of the newspaper in this 1993 editorial was clear:
Duck shooting is not a sport, it is an obscenity… There is no possible justification for this annual killing spree… Those men who need guns to reassure themselves about their masculinity should be forced to look elsewhere for reassurance.[21]
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.”[22]
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.[23]
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’.”[24]
It is clear that most Australians want to see this cruel recreational activity banned around the country without delay. It is time for South Australia to do what is right. It is time for South Australia to protect Australia’s waterbirds and other wildlife from some blokes wanting to have their bit of cruel fun each year.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICX0YpMb56o
[2] https://www.rspcasa.org.au/the-issues/duck-hunting/
[3] https://www.facebook.com/abcsoutheastsa/posts/duck-shooting-at-an-area-near-lake-george-at-beachport-could-be-banned-if-shoote/10155645468007717/
[4] https://au.news.yahoo.com/controversial-activity-shatters-tranquility-of-aussie-lake-oh-my-god-021719800.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJuMsXXTZhGgWGqY8mufQD7Udg557GQMF3sDJUEIAG4wpVRIclYMFnAaHVhESPIoqHAz67qCD0RWx2zhkc-0UpV1bGbbpGl5bQaBL_ZWEKmqmFJ1LO9yGucNWXR5vyyhTEHyE2m76o1QVz_KKjsjlEcmIjwvdSugTDx_Ri9G54Gq
[5] https://www.rspcasa.org.au/the-issues/duck-hunting/
[6]https://new.parliament.vic.gov.au/49a5f7/contentassets/b325ddf58e594a8784e5dabca14b990d/submission-documents/103.-laurence-comerford_redacted.pdf
[7] Weekly Hansard, 10 August 2005, Queensland Parliament, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
[8] 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
[9] 3 May 2023, Wildlife Victoria, https://www.facebook.com/wildlifevictoria/
[10] https://au.news.yahoo.com/controversial-activity-shatters-tranquility-of-aussie-lake-oh-my-god-021719800.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJuMsXXTZhGgWGqY8mufQD7Udg557GQMF3sDJUEIAG4wpVRIclYMFnAaHVhESPIoqHAz67qCD0RWx2zhkc-0UpV1bGbbpGl5bQaBL_ZWEKmqmFJ1LO9yGucNWXR5vyyhTEHyE2m76o1QVz_KKjsjlEcmIjwvdSugTDx_Ri9G54Gq
[11] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-23/rspca-beachport-duck-hunting-video-ahead-of-inquiry/102130602
[12] https://nybreaking.com/lake-george-duck-hunting-controversial-event-shatters-peace-at-south-australian-tourist-spot/
[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] Media Statement Premier of Western Australia, 3 September 1990, Government of Western Australia, https://www.duck.org.au/banned-in-three-states/
[20] 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
[21] Duck shooting should be outlawed, Mar. 24, 1993, The Age
[22] 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
[23] Hansard, Queensland Parliament, 10 August 2005, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
[24] Hansard, Queensland Parliament, 10 August 2005, https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/2005/2005_08_10_WEEKLY.pdf
