PRESS RELEASE: Flaky activist group calls on Victorian Government to abandon science-based approach to setting duck seasons
A flaky anti-hunting activist group whose leader was bizarrely permitted to present to last year’s Parliamentary inquiry into native bird hunting wearing a disguise has publicly called on the Victorian Government to ignore credible science when setting bag limits for duck season.
In an article in the Sunday Herald-Sun, a spokesperson for ‘Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting’ (RVOTDS) pushed a narrative that the Game Management Authority’s (GMA) decision to not invite submissions from lobby groups on the duck season arrangements for 2025 was somehow an indication that “the regulator (GMA) was saying it wasn’t interested in impacts of hunting on threatened species”. This claim is demonstrably absurd given that the shift to Adaptive Harvest Management is underpinned by the most comprehensive suite of environmental data used in any game harvest regime in any jurisdiction in Australasia.
Since 1994, duck seasons have been increasingly subject to seasonal variations. While some of those variations can be shown retrospectively to be closely correlated to the scientific evidence, others clearly cannot. The decision-making process has overwhelmingly been subjective, opaque and subject to apparent political interference.
An interim harvest was introduced in 2021 to smooth the transition to Adaptive Harvest Management. Both the interim and the final models are data-driven and make recommendations on season settings transparently, objectively and in a manner that is removed from politics. Whilst that model might not deliver hunters everything they may want in seasonal conditions in a given year, it does promise full-length seasons with an unquestionably sustainable bag limit.
When the interim model was introduced, SSAA Victoria immediately withdrew from the stakeholder consultation process and wrote to GMA outlining the Association’s rationale for not participating. At the time (2021), the Association wrote, “[m]oving from a subjective, outdated and fundamentally flawed decision-making process to a new science-based process gives a unique opportunity to set a positive and sustainable course for the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.”
In the Sunday Herald Sun article yesterday, GMA CEO Graeme Ford was quoted as saying, “[t]he new Adaptive Harvest Management process will allow government to set sustainable duck season arrangements each year backed by evidence on duck populations and previous harvest trends”.
The Sunday Herald Sun did not contact SSAA Victoria for comment. Had they done so, the Association would have reiterated its long-standing support for Adaptive Harvest Management.