Duck Season

[ricktas]

If you go to the birdlife (sorry, Birdlife Australia) page on facebook, you will see a photo of Red-necked Avocets recently shot by duck hunters. Pink-eared ducks, hard-heads getting slaughtered.

Most duck shooters would shoot into a group birds, of which is a mixture of different birds... my stomach turned when I saw the photo of the dead Red-necked Avocets - senseless....

The problem I have with pages like that is that someone has said a duck hunter shot it, but there is no proof! We are expected to assume those who posted it are telling us the truth, when it could well be that a duck hunter was not in anyway responsible for the death of the bird(s). We only have the activists words that say it was.

I have seen activists hold up a protected species as having been shot by a hunter on opening day of the duck season, only to be called out on it when it was found the said protected species had died several days prior. The activist brought it to the duck shooting lagoon, in an Eski and 'planted' it.

I am not saying in your example, this was the case, Shelley, but I am extremely sceptical of claims made by activists these days. Seems a lack of integrity goes hand in hand with being an activist of any sort, as long as you can get your head or claims in the News, who cares if it is done so under a little less than the truth.

[Shelley]

Fair enough Rick. Time will tell as the duck season continues and what else emerges.

[Speedway]

If you go to the birdlife (sorry, Birdlife Australia) page on facebook, you will see a photo of Red-necked Avocets recently shot by duck hunters. Pink-eared ducks, hard-heads getting slaughtered.

Most duck shooters would shoot into a group birds, of which is a mixture of different birds... my stomach turned when I saw the photo of the dead Red-necked Avocets - senseless....

I seem to remember a number of years ago a large number of birds supposedly shot by duck hunters were dumped on the steps of parliament house on opening day. these birds were later examined and a large portion had not even been shot and even more were found to have been frozen for some time before. Also most of the few that had been collected on the day had been grabbed by idiots running out in front of hunters to illegally grab game legally shot by the hunters. Although I haven't been Duck hunting for many years, I still enjoy hunting rabbits, foxes, wild cats and dogs along with other feral pests.
Bob T. [When killing is a source of enjoyment, and that is the primary motivation, it says a lot about the hunter - all of it bad.] The kill is the end result. The enjoyment comes from being out in the bush with nature using your skill stalking the game to make sure you get a one shot kill. I get similar enjoyment photographing wildlife in it's natural environment. But without the delicious meal at the end.
Cheers
Keith.

[Steve Axford]

There seems to be quite a lot of support for duck hunting here, but nobody who will actually admit to doing it now. Do we have any current duck hunters here?
Can anyone see that the practice will survive another 20 years? If not, why all the support here? According to polls it isn't supported by the general community.

[ricktas]

There seems to be quite a lot of support for duck hunting here, but nobody who will actually admit to doing it now. Do we have any current duck hunters here?
Can anyone see that the practice will survive another 20 years? If not, why all the support here? According to polls it isn't supported by the general community.

I have direct family members who still shoot. I had a lovely feed of slow cooked grey teal last weekend. Hunting is not illegal, and along with a myriad of other things in society, in my view, we need to be careful what we wish for. So duck hunting gets banned and you applaud the result. Next up photography of children in public places. I think the erosion of what we can and cannot do is starting to border on being a communist state and not a free democracy (or capitalist society, depending on your view).

I still have a gun licence and there is nothing stopping me getting a duck licence and going out next weekend for a shoot. Probably the only reason I don't is lack of time. But I will defend my right to do so..until it is made illegal.

[Rattus79]

Next up photography of children in public places

I had a mother try and explain to me the other day that photographing her children in public was illegal...

She wouldn't listen and ended up ranting and raving at me that if she saw someone snapping shots of her kids she'd go and break their camera...

I wished her good luck and sent her on her way.

and now back to the ducks, which when prepared properly can be quite delicious, but so few people can prepare it properly.

[Steve Axford]

I have direct family members who still shoot. I had a lovely feed of slow cooked grey teal last weekend. Hunting is not illegal, and along with a myriad of other things in society, in my view, we need to be careful what we wish for. So duck hunting gets banned and you applaud the result. Next up photography of children in public places. I think the erosion of what we can and cannot do is starting to border on being a communist state and not a free democracy (or capitalist society, depending on your view).

I still have a gun licence and there is nothing stopping me getting a duck licence and going out next weekend for a shoot. Probably the only reason I don't is lack of time. But I will defend my right to do so..until it is made illegal.

Yes it is legal, and you can do it without any fear of legal consequences. But, it seems unlikely that it will be legal in the future. I don't see this a parallel with photographing children (which I see nothing wrong with) as they are completely different arguments. Fewer and fewer people do duck hunt now, perhaps through lack or time, perhaps through not really being able to justify it to themselves or their piers. I don't think stopping duck hunting is part of any slippery slope down into communism. I don't see that communism would want to ban it anyway. After all, communist countries don't have a great record with animal conservation. Nor do they show any great inclination to ban children's photographs - unless banning Pussy Riot counts - whoops, they're not communist are they, they're Russian. Hard to tell the difference. Perhaps they were always Russian first.
All this thread has done from my point of view is to draw my attention to the resumption of duck hunting in Victoria and made me learn a bit more about it. It seems to me to be about as justified as the Japanese and Norwegian whaling. Clearly you don't agree, but time will tell.

[Bear Dale]

Yes it is legal, and you can do it without any fear of legal consequences. But, it seems unlikely that it will be legal in the future.

How do you know it won't be legal for the foreseeble future?

NSW is opening up almost 100 National Parks for shooters to shoot in.

[Steve Axford]

I don't know, but I think it's a good guess. I doubt that the NSW action will last for very many years as the justification seems to be feral animal control, and yet most people in the know say that it won't help. As populations increase, so "sports" like hunting naturally tend to get pushed out. In the end it will be because there aren't enough ducks left to shoot and the people that want to look at and photograph ducks, far outnumber those who want to shoot them.

[Bear Dale]

I don't know, but I think it's a good guess. I doubt that the NSW action will last for very many years as the justification seems to be feral animal control, and yet most people in the know say that it won't help. As populations increase, so "sports" like hunting naturally tend to get pushed out. In the end it will be because there aren't enough ducks left to shoot and the people that want to look at and photograph ducks, far outnumber those who want to shoot them.

So you're against fishing as well because they're getting harder to catch. Maybe we should just photograph the fishies as well?


Enjoy your supermarket "game" Steve.

[Steve Axford]

When did I mention fishing? But now that you mention it, there is a clear need to control commercial fishing so that it is sustainable. This is a totally different argument than the duck hunting one. I remember that my grandfather had a fisheries book from the 1950's. In it it showed the fish that were prevalent around the Australian coast in the 1930's and warned of the rapidly declining fish stocks. They had areal photographs from near Eden showing fish schools that extended from one horizon to the other. Fish stocks have continued to decline and many non-communists are very worried about the collapse of fisheries due to over fishing. I am not advocating anything specific here, just pointing out that unrestricted fishing or hunting in these days of high population and sophisticated technologies mean that unrestricted hunting or fishing can mean the end of species and then we will all be forced to buy packet food in supermarkets.

[Bear Dale]

When did I mention fishing? .

You did, have a read back.

[Steve Axford]

I'll take your word for it. How about a response to the bulk of what I said.

p.s.
I did a search on "fish" and I didn't get a hit on any of my posts. Can you please point to where I mentioned fish?

[Speedway]

My only reason for not hunting ducks now is where I live there is nowhere nearby to do it and trying to survive on the pension means some enjoyable pastimes had to go motor sport and duck hunting were 2 of them. Re duck populations, if it wasn't for groups like the field and game assn. who build and maintain breeding boxes in the wetland areas and fight against the draining of natural wetlands the duck population would have dropped to much lower levels years ago. Shooters do more for conservation than most conservation groups.
Keith.

[ameerat42]

Maybe Baz could make up some iron duck suits for the ducks. That'd give them an advantage?

[extraball]

give the ducks guns, and give them a fighting chance

[ameerat42]

And take them out of sideshow alley...

[ricktas]

Could always practice with some rubber duckies in the bath and my air rifle.

[extraball]

Could always practice with some rubber duckies in the bath and my air rifle.

expect a photo for CC this weekend then?