Restricted duck season

LICENCED duck hunters will have a heavily shortened season and be able to take fewer birds under arrangements announced on Saturday for Victoria’s 2021 duck hunting season. Victoria’s Game Management Authority said the heavier restrictions this season recognise lower than average bird numbers and breeding, adding that arrangements are based on analysis of habitat and waterbird surveys conducted across eastern Australia and other data relating to game duck abundance, habitat distribution and climate. The 2021 season will start on Wednesday, May 26 and will last 20 days, closing 30 minutes after sunset on Monday, June 14. Hunting start times will be delayed until 8am for the first five days of the season from Wednesday, May 26 to Sunday, May 30. Hunters will be restricted to a daily bag limit of two birds and will be prohibited from hunting the Blue- winged Shoveler across Victoria, and both the Grey Teal and Chestnut Teal north of the Princes Highway/Freeway. GMA said the restrictions on hunting Grey Teal are because of reduced numbers and breeding - and given the similarity in appearance of the Grey Teal and the female Chestnut Teal, both species will be prohibited from being hunted north of the Princes Highway/Freeway. The GMA and partner agencies, including Victoria Police, will be patrolling both public lands and private properties to ensure compliance with hunting, animal welfare and public safety laws. As in previous years, the GMA will continue to monitor conditions in the lead up to and during the season and said where warranted, wetlands may be closed to hunting to protect concentrations of rare threatened species. All licensed hunters must pass a Waterfowl Identification Test before being permitted to hunt ducks. Details of the 2021 duck season, including any wetland closures, will be updated on the GMA website www.gma.vic.gov.au Both sides cry foul, want investigation HUNTERS and anti-duck season advocates are both crying foul over Victoria’s duck season this year, with both calling for an independent review - albeit hoping for polar opposite outcomes. Field and Game Australia (FGA) said the restricted season is “outrageous” and “our members will not accept these modifications as these have not been made based on science and data, but more on appeasing those opposed to a duck season”. FGA said the decision doesn’t just impact hunters, warning that rural and regional Victoria will miss out on significant revenue and investment from the duck hunting community. The FGA will request the government for an independent review of the decision-making and season setting process of the Game Management Authority (GMA). Meanwhile the Coalition Against Duck Shooting is calling for a Royal Commission into duck shooting, accusing the GMA of an alleged serious conflict of interest in its decision making, and questioning how a duck season can proceed “in times of climate change and dangerously low numbers of waterbirds”.