Duck hunter anger: Andrews ignores own science on 90-day season

The Andrews Government has ignored independent ecologists’ recommendations for a full 90-day season.

The 2023 duck season is just 35 days, from 8am Wednesday 26 April 2023 to Tuesday 30 May 2023 (inclusive). Picture Yuri Kouzmin

The Andrews government has slashed Victoria’s 2023 duck season to just 35 days, with a four-bird daily bag limit, angering hunters and in contradiction of independent ecologists’ advice.

The government’s own Game Management Authority’s interim harvest model, developed and overseen by Deakin University ecology chair Marcel Klaassen, recommended a full 90-day season with a four bird daily bag limit.

In announcing the season the GMA stated “while the interim harvest model has been run to inform the settings for the 2023 duck season, the outputs of this model have been modified to provide a more precautionary approach to concerns regarding the rates of wounding of ducks, poor behaviour by some hunters, and the fact that waterbird abundance, breeding and habitat availability, all show long-term declines”.

But the GMA’s compliance report on last season states “one hunter was found to have exceeded the daily bag limit” out of the 979 whose bags its authorised officers checked across 216 wetlands”. Two hunters did not have a game licence and six were using lead, instead of steel, shot.

Field and Game Australia president Danny Ryan said: “We’re perplexed that there’s no reason offered for the reduction in length of the season.

“The government has ignored its own interim harvest model.”

Mr Ryan said if the season was to be cut by a third then the bag limit should be lifted to at least the statutory limit of 10 birds a day.

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia hunting development manager David Laird said “the Government went to an election just 90 days ago and committed to the interim harvest model, moving towards an adaptive harvest model”.

“The hunting organisations met with the relevant minister, and the government’s commitment to the status quo in that regard was clear,” he said.

“If the government had other ideas, they had an opportunity to seek a mandate from the Victorian public for them.”

The government has also announced it will move an upper house motion during the next parliamentary sitting week to establish a select committee to “examine recreational native bird hunting in Victoria”, its environmental sustainability, impact on amenity and what arrangements exist in other states.

Mr Laird attacked the select committee announcement saying that at least the South Australian Government took a similar proposal to their recent state election.

“It looks both timid and tricky for the Victorian Government to have not done the same,” Mr Laird said.

The committee is due to report back to Parliament by August 31.

The 2023 season will start at 8:00 am and will close 30 minutes after sunset each day from Wednesday 26 April 2023 to Tuesday 30 May 2023 (inclusive). The bag limit is four (4) birds per day.

It is prohibited to hunt Blue-winged Shoveler and Hardhead across Victoria as both species were recently listed as threatened under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.