There may be instances where sporting shooters can reduce populations of
feral animals. This has happened in NW Vic where members of the local
sporting shooters club have worked with parks management and other land
owners on goat and rabbit control.
However, simply opening the parks up to sporting shooters does little or
nothing to reduce the feral animal populations. Ad-hoc recreational
shooting disturbs and disperses the animals making any subsequent attempt to
control their numbers more difficult. Also, as others have mentioned,
recreational shooters have no incentive to eliminate feral animals. What
they do is closer to rangeland farming where the population is maintained.
Any shooting that is carried out must be under the supervision of parks
management and take place at particular times as deemed appropriate by parks
management. Responsible shooters who understand the impact of feral animals
on the environment have no difficulty working with parks managers to achieve
a good outcome. There must also be before and after surveys to show that
the shooting has reduced the population of feral animals in the park.
40 years ago in NZ, deer control was largely left to recreational shooters.
The population of deer boomed. It was only when professional shooters,
working from helicopters were introduced that there was any impact on the
deer population. Opposition to the helicopter shooting came mainly from
recreational hunters who claimed it was cruel as the deer did not have a
'sporting chance' to run away, perhaps wounded. Part of my job at the time
was to monitor the effectiveness of deer and other feral animal control.
Recreational shooters just did not rate as a control measure.
If the NSW Govt was really interested in feral animal control they would be
working with professional shooters and perhaps recreational shooters as part
of a supervised feral animal control program.
Regards,
Euan
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