SSAA Victoria commends GMA for its work in detecting illegal activity by activists and the anti-hunting brigade over the long-weekend. The Association expects the Regulator to continue to issue infringement and banning notices to those who illegally interfere with law-abiding hunters in the future. There is no place for cowboys on the State’s wetlands. More needs to be done to keep those zealots away from hunters going about their lawful and legitimate activities. Hunting is statistically a very safe activity, as long as basic safety protocols are followed. Those who deliberately put themselves and others at risk for the sake of garnering media attention need to be stopped.
However, the Association remains perplexed by the decision not to extend the 2021 duck season. An already severely restricted season was further reduced by the latest COVID-19 lockdown. The data provided by the Arthur Rylah Institute (ARI) clearly shows that a significantly longer season, along with a higher bag limit were justified and sustainable, even when based on an extremely low harvest offtake of 10 percent. The Association was pleased to see Minister Thomas agree to an increase in the daily bag limit. Unfortunately, last minute changes by GMA to its published definition of “breeding” prevented any real chance of an extension occurring. As a result of that decision, most Melbourne-based hunters had no opportunity to hunt at all. We would expect the Minister to take this fact into account and show her ongoing support by extending the State’s duck hunting licences for another season, at no cost to hunters.
As previously highlighted by the Association, the process for setting Victoria’s duck season is clearly defective. The Association has raised its concerns with the Minister and indicated it will no longer participate in such a flawed process.
On a positive note, SSAA Victoria looks forward to seeing a continuation of the Victoria helicopter duck counts over summer and the introduction of an Adaptive Harvest Model for setting seasons. The Association sees benefits for hunters, government and the GMA if the significant changes that have been promised over the past decade are finally delivered. However, the “science” still needs to be robustly peer-reviewed and verified. In the Association’s view, much of the rationale used to justify a change to the breeding definition needs to be verified.
The Association will continue to represent its members’ interests and work with government and regulators where appropriate to deliver sustainable hunting outcomes.
The linked media release from GMA provides details of a surveillance drone detecting illegal activity at Lake Connewarre and a summary of the 2021 duck season compliance statistics.
