In 2004 a leading ballistics expert in the US, Tom Roster, told American duck shooters...
that unless they could lower the wounding rates in waterbirds, then duck shooting would go the same way in America as it has in Australia (where two states, Western Australia in 1990 and New South Wales in 1995), have banned the recreational shooting of native waterbirds. In Victoria the numbers of duck shooters have decreased from about 95,000 in 1986 to 19,400 licensed today, however, only about 4,000 of those are still active.
It is important to note that the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA), Field & Game Australia and Winchester Olin brought the American ballistics expert to Australia in February 2005 to address the same wounding problems to waterbirds caused by Victorian shooters.
(Shooters fire at birds out of shotgun range (about 50 metres) In this situation birds at hit and wounded. They continue to fly on but usually die slow, painful deaths. Shooters also fire into flocks of birds, wounding many. Victorian duck shooters have poor shooting skills.)
It is encouraging to see that US shooters keep a close watch on the situation in Australia where the recreational shooting of native waterbirds is now considered unacceptable to the vast majority of the Australian public.
In November 2002, the Bracks Labor Government's own Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC) recommended that the recreational shooting of native waterbirds be banned because of the inherent cruelty.
It is of real concern that in the 21st Century, the so-called modern-day Bracks Labor Government treats Australia's native waterbirds as badly as the Bolte Liberal Government did, some 45 years ago.
It is somewhat disloyal to the Labor Party that Premier Steve Bracks chooses to follow the policies of a hard-line Bolte Liberal Government, when more enlightened State Labor Governments, Western Australia (1990) and New South Wales (1995), have already banned the recreational shooting of native waterbirds.
It is all the more outrageous when leading Australian ornithologist and scientist, Dr Richard Kingford, who conducts aerial surveys of waterbird populations down eastern Australia, said that waterbird numbers are at their lowest in 20 years.
Using Dr Kingford's scientific data, the Victorian Government, pandering to shooters, declared a season in 2005. Yet the Queensland Government, using the same data, called a moratorium in that state.
Evidence that the Victorian Government ignores the environmental & scientific data available, and instead, makes a political decision on this issue.
And now Queensland has banned the recreational shooting of native waterbirds (2005)