Good to see some chat on this. 'Enforcement' on Victorian wetlands is
functionally non-existent. DPI, through Game Victoria, now administers duck
hunting. Compliance Officers number five. On opening and closing weekends,
they are supplemented by police, DSE and Parks Victoria staff. That's it.
Re protests starting because of the shooting of threatened species. CADS was
formed 27 years ago as a result of the cruelty of duck shooting. No one was
defending the birds or auditing bad behaviour so Laurie Levy took out the
first team into the field.
Duck rescuers don't protest. They don't carry placards or sign petitions or
march in the streets. There's no time. They're too busy saving injured
ducks, getting them to vets and released back into the wild. For this, they
are charged with concocted offences such as 'harassing and hindering
hunters', with fines imposed for even more improbable 'crimes' such as
blowing a whistle.
In contrast, not one hunter has been charged with offences under the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979. Not this year, last year or in
living memory. Even when they failed to kill wounded ducks, placed live
ducks into bags or hung living ducks from their belts. (And were filmed
doing so.)
Nor have hunters been charged with stuffing bags full of dead ducks into
logs so they don't have to be added to their daily bag limit. Or discarding
the carcasses of thousands of ducks like so much rubbish on the wetlands.
Some are 'harvested' of one small bit of breast meat; the rest is thrown
away, to become food for foxes or feral cats.
You have to wonder since when was a swan, kite or coot legal game? It's not
just at Box Flat that these birds are gunned down. It's everywhere. No one
is monitoring them and shooters know it. If you're interested, here's some
photos:
m("N04/","//www.flickr.com/photos/94330342");">http:
Oh! And yes, I got a gun licence and shot all those freckled ducks to bring
shooters into disrepute. Because they're not doing a good enough job of it
themselves, are they?
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