Duck Rescue, Geelong Field and Games argue why duck hunting is good … or bad

Is it a cruel sport or an inconvenient truth for those who ignore the science in favour of ideology. Decide which columnist wins the argument.

Is duck hunting cruelty or important for our wetlands? 

Nat Kopas

Geelong Duck Rescue Coordinator

The inherent and unavoidable cruelty in duck shooting, outweighs all the arguments advanced

in favour of keeping a bloodsport that only 0.2 per cent of people in Victoria actually want.

Add in the negative impact on residents, visitors and tourism opportunities and there is no reason to allow duck shooting to continue.

On day one of the season this year, I watched as a duck was shot, mocked and then ignored as she huddled in pain on the shore.

I helped rescue her and get her to vet treatment, where the X-ray revealed three pellets, a fractured wing and broken pelvis. Without volunteer rescuers being in the right place at the right time, this native duck would have been in agony for days until eventual death.

This is a common story, it happens every day of the season, but sadly the vast number of wounded out there are never found.

Even with the best accuracy, the metal pellet filled cartridges used by duck shooters means that there will be up to a 40 per cent wounding rate and there will be birds left behind to die slowly.

Geelong Duck Rescue coordinator Nat Kopas

All this suffering is an unavoidable part of duck shooting.

Each year, non-target species are killed and wounded by these indiscriminate weapons.

In 2025 a swan and an endangered freckled duck were shot down on day one of the season.

In Geelong, residents of Leopold and Armstrong Creek are woken before dawn to the sound of gunshots, for three months of the year.

Many of these people are puzzled, having unknowingly purchased homes only hundreds of metres from where duck shooters blast birds out of the sky for fun.

They soon learn that their water view properties don’t allow them to walk their dogs near the water for the duration of duck shooting season and their new community bike/walking track

comes complete with men in cammo with guns.

This is not the family friendly environment that those moving to these new growth areas expect.

Having been involved with duck rescue for 23 years, I forget that most people do not consider

gun violence and animal cruelty as normal.

People are horrified when I explain the reality of what is allowed in Victoria and what I witness daily throughout the season.

It’s kept just out of sight, hidden by the reeds, the suffering of the native wildlife wounded and forgotten, the callous cheering of “YEE-HAW!” as a shooter kills another bird with a spray of pellets.

A handful of duck shooters can disturb the peace of surrounding Geelong suburbs, leave a trail

of plastic shotgun shells littering the waterways, disturb endangered species and cause serious

suffering among the already struggling bird populations.

A handful of shooters is all it takes, and a handful of mainly local shooters is all Geelong gets.

Not remotely enough to offer any economic advantage to the region.

Taxpayer money that funds policing efforts would be better spent on genuine conservation.

By contrast, eco-tourism such as bird watching tours, offers genuine benefits all year round, with the added bonus that no-one is woken at dawn by gunfire and no animals suffer.

The government’s priority on duck shooting means eco-tourism is effectively locked out of Geelong.

Duck numbers have been in continual and serious decline for many years.

Duck shooters pretend the practice is sustainable but the population graph keeps trending downward every year.

Drought and habitat loss may be the leading causes for this decline, but shooting them as

well adds to the strain.

The claim that duck shooters are conservationists is an insult to the real conservationists across the country, who pour their time and effort into genuine efforts to protect the environment.

During the 2023 parliamentary inquiry into duck shooting, the shooters openly threatened to

withdraw their ‘conservation’ efforts if a ban on shooting stopped their fun.

This doesn’t fit any definition of a conservationist I’ve ever encountered.

Geelong could remain the closest place to Melbourne where you can kill wildlife for fun.

Or, with beautiful coasts, wetlands and abundant birdlife, it has the ability to be known as a go-to destination for nature enthusiasts, day trippers and families looking for friendly communities.

That’s an easy choice.

Travis Smith

Geelong Field and Game president

Picture a Victorian wetland at sunrise, alive with bird calls and teeming with life – a landscape that exists not despite duck hunters, but because of them.

While detractors decry cruelty and environmental damage, these guardians of nature invest

their time, energy, and resources into safeguarding our wild places.

Far from foes, Victorian duck hunters are the beating heart of wetland vitality.

Without them, these ecosystems would suffer, and the ducks anti-hunters claim to defend would have nowhere to live.

Yet the loudest voices in this debate aren’t the ones getting their hands dirty.

Activists demand bans and restrictions from the sidelines, while hunters are out in

the field, funding and physically maintaining the very habitats that sustain waterfowl.

The Victorian Government, through the Game Management Authority, knows the

truth: science-driven management, including regulated hunting, is the key to healthy

duck populations.

Victoria is in the process or refining and implementing a world-class wildlife

management system.

Geelong Field and Game president Travis Smith

Using waterfowl surveys, habitat assessments, and adaptive harvest strategies, authorities set sustainable hunting limits based on real data – not emotion.

And the facts speak for themselves: duck populations are dictated by habitat, not hunting. Australian duck species will thrive under this system, adapting even in dry years.

When critics point to population declines, they are being deliberately misleading.

Apart from natural boom-and-bust cycles, science makes it clear: long-term declines in waterfowl are driven by habitat loss, not hunting.

The most extensive research on Australian waterbirds confirms that regulated harvests have no measurable impact on population sustainability.

Hunters’ conservation efforts – restoring wetlands, enhancing breeding success, and controlling invasive predators – actively build resilience in duck populations, a fact too often ignored by opponents of hunting.

While no one condones the harm of protected species, the scale of this issue is often exaggerated for political effect.

As Professor Richard Kingsford, one of Australia’s foremost waterbird experts, testified during Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into native game bird hunting, “I do not think (shooting of) non-target species is an issue” at a population level.

The real crisis facing waterbirds is the loss of their habitat.

The net benefit of hunters funding and maintaining wetlands far outweighs any perceived risk

from hunting – an inconvenient truth for those who ignore the science in favour of

ideology.

While activists write petitions, hunters roll up their sleeves.

Licence fees alone inject millions into conservation, but that’s just the beginning. Groups like Geelong Field and Game have spent decades restoring the Connewarre wetland system – a globally significant Ramsar-listed site.

The Hospital Swamp Wetlands, now a thriving haven for wildlife, exist because hunters made it happen.

Originally published as Duck Rescue, Geelong Field and Games argue why duck hunting is good … or bad