SA parliament backs duck hunting as RSPCA Victoria demands a ban

South Australia’s parliament has called for a continuation of duck season, while the RSPCA cranks up its campaign for a ban.

RSPCA Victoria chief executive Liz Walker (right) says duck hunting will put additional pressure on species that are already threatened by global warming, despite a recent surge in abundance.

South Australia’s parliament has called for the continuation of duck season, just as RSPCA Victoria and other animal welfare groups crank up their campaign to end the annual harvest.

A South Australian parliamentary select committee has recommended the government retain the legislative provision that “allows for native bird hunting”, after nine months of debate and calls for public submissions.

The only condition the SA Committee wanted imposed on hunters was that they “wear a large, visible identity tag” when shooting on crown land.

Meanwhile across the border in Victoria, the RSPCA has selectively used the results from the latest Eastern Waterbird Survey to call for a duck hunting ban.

The aerial survey, conducted each spring by University of NSW ecologists, counted 579,641 water birds across eastern Australia in 2023, the seventh highest in 41 years, compared to 187,175 in 2022 and 95,306 in 2021.

“After record high breeding in 2022, most game species of ducks had abundances well above long-term averages, in some cases by an order of magnitude (a tenfold increase),” the survey said.

Eastern Waterbird survey – waterbirds numbers from the last 50 years. Source: University of NSW

But RSPCA Victoria, Animals Australia, Wildlife Victoria and BirdLife Australia made no mention of these numbers in a media release, which instead highlighted that the survey “revealed five of the eight game species of ducks continue to show significant long-term declines in abundance”.

That decline is based on comparing abundance, measured in four 10-year blocks, dating back to 1983.

Waterbird abundance – comparing the average count in 10-year blocks.

BirdLife Australia chief executive Kate Millar said: “The latest survey clearly shows that despite a series of good seasons, waterbird and game species numbers have not increased to where we would expect them to be.

“With a return of drier, El Nino conditions there can be no justification for increasing the hazards faced by waterbirds through continued duck shooting.”

But one of the key authors of the survey, Prof Richard Kingsford recently told Victorian Parliament’s select committee inquiry into recreational native bird hunting that he had analysed 30 years of data on whether there was any effect of hunting on those species.

“We found a very small effect, which was considerably overridden by the loss of habitat effect,” Prof Kingsford said.

Yet despite this RSPCA Victoria chief executive Liz Walker said her organisation has long-held animal welfare concerns around wounding from hunting and the latest data also highlights sustainability concerns that cannot be ignored.

“We know that many ducks are wounded and left to suffer during hunting season, and the release of this latest survey data highlights the fact that duck hunting will put additional pressure on species that are already threatened by global warming.

“There is now so much evidence to support a ban on duck hunting in Victoria, and we are calling on the government to finally put one in place,”

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia Victorian division spokesman Barry Howlett said it was “disappointing, but not surprising that the animal rights movement would try to spin a significant increase in waterbird abundance as a negative”.

“The Victorian Government’s approach to game duck season setting through the interim harvest model and the newly published sustainable harvest framework ensure that regulated game duck hunting does not have a population level impact,” he said.

“The RSCPA and their pals can have their own opinions, but they cannot have their own facts. The clear facts are that recreational duck hunting in Victoria is a sustainable activity”.