Residents divided as duck hunting ban lifted

Residents were woken up by gunshots early Friday morning after hunters got the green light to return to Hospital Swamp. Have your say on the matter in our poll.

Some Armstrong Creek residents woke to sounds of gunfire on Good Friday when Hospital Swamp reopened to duck hunters.

The area, part of the Lake Connewarre State Game Reserve, was closed to hunters at the start of the season because of the presence of a large number of uncommon blue-winged shoveller ducks in the area.

But the Game Management Authority announced last week hunting would resume on April 18 because the number of blue-winged shoveller ducks had dipped below the threshold.

Some residents and activists took to social media to voice their outrage, saying they were woken suddenly on the morning of Good Friday when gunshots rang out across the suburb.

Locals were woken by gunshots as hunters retuned to Hospital Swamp at sunrise on Good Friday. Picture: Alison Wynd

“My two dogs woke me this morning at 6am freaking out. Sounded like the guns were being fired on our street,” one resident posted.

“Sounds like a police shootout,” another wrote.

Geelong Duck Rescue co-ordinator Nat Kopas said she reacted with “horror and frustration” when she learned the ban had been lifted.

“We knew they would re-open and that when it did, shooters would flock to it because they get so excited about shooting there again, and that results in terrible outcomes like this for the ducks and the residents,” Ms Kopas said.

A hunter near Lake Connewarre at the opening of duck hunting season. Picture: Alison Wynd

“We were absolutely flooded with calls from residents who had no idea why they were being woken up by gunshots at 6am on Good Friday … they were terrified and upset,” she added.

But Geelong Field and Game representative Lucas Cooke said Hospital Swamp had been used as a game reserve for decades and the reactions were overstated.

“While some people may have heard the sounds, the claims from activists that the entire community is disturbed are greatly overstated,” Mr Cooke said.

“We have open days involving all aspects of the local community and once they find out who we are and what we do it’s almost always received positively.

Mr Cooke said the club’s volunteers had established the swamp’s water inlet structure and channels in the late 1970s.

He said the group was “100 per cent supportive of management measures when the birds (blue-winged shoveller ducks) are seen, and that goes for all non game species”.

“In this case the correct process was followed when the gaming authority verified the number shoveller no longer met the threshold, and hunting resumed,” he added.

Mr Cooke acknowledged protected and non game species were sometimes accidentally killed by hunters

He said he was aware of one case this year of a hunter shooting a blue-winged shoveller duck in a “clear case of mistaken identity”.

“It’s highly regrettable but the fact is that the rate of non-game species getting shot is very rare,” he said.

“In this day and age the number of non-game species shot is absolutely inconsequential to the population.”

Originally published as Residents divided as duck hunting ban lifted