Taking aim: Hunters and farmers targeted in push for shooting tests

After almost three years of reviews, Victoria’s regulators are making the final push to impose shooter proficiency testing of gun owners.

Hunters and farmers face having to prove their shooting skills to hunt and cull wildlife. Picture: Dannika Bonser

VICTORIAN farmers and duck hunters are at risk of being forced to undertake mandatory shooter proficiency training, before they can control wildlife or target game.

The Game Management Authority has already adopted the recommendations of a 2017 independent review that calls for hunters to undertake mandatory shooter proficiency training.

The review consultants Pegasus recommended “prospective duck hunters demonstrate their attendance at a Shotgunning Education Program prior to the issue of a duck hunting licence and that similar courses be developed for the holders of other categories of hunting licences”, such as deer and quail.

The GMA is now calling on the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions to consider incorporating mandatory proficiency testing in the remaking of the Wildlife (Game) Regulations, which must be redrafted before the end on the year.

The GMA has already investigated Denmark’s proficiency training program, which, like other Scandinavian countries, requires hunters to pass both written and practical tests.

A Government spokeswoman said Agriculture Minister Mary-Anne Thomas would “consider mandatory shooter proficiency testing as part of the review and remaking of the regulations”.

In the meantime farmers face their own battle, as wildlife protection and animal welfare groups call for shooter proficiency testing prior to the State Government issuing authority to control wildlife permits.

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning launched a review into the ACTW system in 2017, which is yet to be completed.

DELWP asked: “Do you support the suggestion that all shooters, regardless of target species, should be required to pass a shooting proficiency test?”

Of the 242 respondents to the review, 155 supported a mandatory shooter proficiency test, but only 12 of those had ever taken out an ATCW permit.

Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio is also undertaking a review of the Wildlife Protection Act, under which the ACTW regulations sit, but is yet to release details on when that process will start.

“There was strong support for proficiency testing from non-ATCW holders, with 78 per cent of these respondents supporting the suggestion,” DELWP reported. “Conversely, 58 per cent of ATCW holders opposed the suggestion.”

The majority of respondents, most of whom lived within 80km of Melbourne, also backed imposing ATCW permit fees, a requirement that landholders record the number of animals shot and notify neighbours prior to undertaking any controls.

The Victorian Farmers Federation and Field and Game Australia both said they opposed proficiency testing.

A government spokeswoman said DELWP’s Conservation Regulator was due to release her recommendations on the ACTW shortly.