Victorian duck hunting season 2023: Experts recommend season goes ahead

Leading waterfowl ecologists have developed a scientific model that recommends Victoria’s duck hunting season go ahead. See the daily bird bag limit.

Australia’s leading waterfowl ecologists have developed a scientific model that recommends Victoria’s 2023 duck hunting season go ahead with a four bird per day bag limit on hunters over the three-month season.

Deakin University chair of ecology Marcel Klaassen, in partnership with other ecologists, used NSW and Victorian waterbird surveys and data on breeding and wetland revival to recommend “a bag limit of four ducks per day”.

Victoria’s Game Management Authority reinforced the ecologists’ findings in its reports, stating the interim harvest model found that “based on 2022 data, the recommendation for 2023 is four birds per day.

“The experts (ecologists) recommended to regulate the bag limit rather than season length if there was a need to restrict seasonal harvest.”

Yet despite the ecologists’ recommendation, Victorian media outlets reported this week the Andrews Government was considering a ban on duck hunting.

Hunters have backed the scientists findings, arguing the interim harvest model, introduced in 2021, was data-driven and made recommendations on season settings transparently, objectively and in a manner that is removed from politics.

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia hunting development manager David Laird said moving from “a subjective, outdated and fundamentally flawed decision-making process to a new science-based process gives a unique opportunity to set a positive and sustainable course for the future”.

“That opportunity must be embraced and made to work. Lack of transparency will inevitably lead to the continued loss of trust in the GMA and stakeholder conflict.

“While the harvest numbers that the science provides might not always give hunters the bag they would like, they will ensure the long-term sustainability of duck populations and duck hunting.

“Regulating the bag limit, rather than the season length, also ensures hunters have plenty of opportunity to hunt each year. As a result, the move to transparent, science-based, season-setting arrangements is fully supported by the association.”