Looking towards 2023
With the 2022 duck season concluded, SSAA Victoria has our sights firmly on season 2023.
The Interim Adaptive Harvest Model (IAHM), while not meeting the expectations of some hunters regarding bag limits, does promise to deliver full-length seasons as the norm. SSAA Victoria remains actively committed to helping to refine the model.
In preparation for the 2022 season, the IAHM report and recommendations were published on 24 December 2021. A decision was not announced until 26 February 2022. That was over two months after publication and just eighteen days before the season commenced. By any reasonable standard, that is unacceptable.
With the disruption and uncertainty coming with an election in late November, the government must take the opportunity now to outline and commit to a clear and transparent process for season announcements for 2023 and beyond. This would, as the government put it so well at the 2018 election, “continue to take the politics out of determining duck numbers”.
Research at the Western Treatment Plant
SSAA Victoria attended Melbourne’s Western Treatment Plant yesterday to see a unique research co-operative gathering data on wild ducks for various studies.
The project is capturing wild ducks using cannon-netting, leading on the expertise of the Victorian Wader Study Group, which has over thirty years of experience capturing wild birds this way.
Captured ducks are placed in holding cages before being sexed, aged, and x-rayed as a part of the wounding monitoring program. Blood samples and swabs are taken as a part of studies into diseases such as avian influenza.
SSAA Victoria has a representative on the Waterfowl Wounding Reduction Action Plan working group. The Association has recently provided expertise, facilities and personnel to support a series of videos produced by the Game Management Authority aimed at reducing wounding.
Around eighty birds were captured when SSAA Victoria visited the project, and all were returned to the wild.
Openness and transparency about these research projects are essential to giving hunters, and the broader community, confidence in their outcomes.
Challenge to vulnerable species listing progressing
In May, we reported on SSAA Victoria’s efforts to challenge the Hardhead Duck (Aythya australis) listing as “Vulnerable” on Victoria’s threatened species list. The Association took this action because the evidence does not support these valued game birds being on that list.
On Monday this week, the Association was advised that the nomination was considered further at the most recent Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting on 30 June 2022. The nomination is being assessed and will be considered further by the SAC at their next full meeting.
It is pleasing that the nomination has proceeded to the next stage of the process.
SSAA Victoria will keep members informed as this progresses.
Black duck study leans on local hunters
Another study, recently published by the British Ecological Society, used a newly developed solar-powered tracking system to examine the behaviours of six free-ranging Pacific black ducks. The technology allowed researchers to collect and translate data from six ducks into eight different behaviour types with an overall accuracy of 92.04%.
The ducks were captured near Wallington on the Bellarine Peninsula with the assistance of Geelong Field & Game members.
You can read the study online.
