KATE Bossence in her Letter to the Editor (Gannawarra Times, March 28) writes persuasively of the brutal reality of duck shooting.
It is particularly moving to read that our smallest duck, the pink-eared duck, will soon be “used for target practice” – if shooting a cloud of dispersing pellets can be regarded as having a “target”.
The “targeting” of this little duck is still legal in spite of the Game Management Authority acknowledging that last year the pinkie made up just one per cent of the bag count.
And that this came with an overall decline in the total game duck abundance index to just 25 per cent of the long-term average.
Two years ago, the hardhead species was, like the pinkie today, a “legitimate” target.
It is now listed as endangered.
In 2023, how can the unequal contest driving our native species closer to extinction be considered a sport?
Lesley Walker
Northcote
