Promote ethical hunting
REGARDING the Gannawarra Times article on February 22 (Hunters fire back, pg 6), following recent discussion with Field and Game Australia.
Field and Game Australia have contacted (journalist) Lucy Williams in an effort to have claims made by Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting and RSPCA around 500 wounded birds rescued at Lake Murphy in a single season substantiated.
As for the claim that “Hunters have no respect for the land or the beautiful birds”, this is a disgraceful slander by these groups, that proves a complete lack of understanding of what Field and Game Australia, and duck hunters stand for.
Sixty-four years on record rehabilitating and regenerating wetlands and advocating for assistance enabling environmental improvements and water allocations from government departments proves this.
Regarding the claims around wounding rates, perhaps what is missing here is the fact that hunting organisations, such as Field and Game Australia and SSAA Victoria, continue to work with government departments to reduce wounding and promote ethical hunting, even working alongside RSPCA who are also considered a stakeholder despite their consistent call for a total and immediate ban to duck hunting.
The subject is an emotive one, however Field and Game Australia continue to stick to the facts rather than fiction and work towards positive outcomes while defending the ability for hunting to continue into the future.
Harvesting a sustainable portion of the duck population in an ethical manner for the table and continuing to develop and grow the fantastic work carried out over the past 64 years. We look forward to more groups of invested stakeholders rolling up their sleeves and joining us in the wetlands 12 months of the year, working alongside our volunteers on one of our growing list of current projects.
Glenn Falla
Conservation and hunting manager,
Field and Game Australia
Dose of salt
HUNT lobby group Field & Game Australia (FGA) must be joking (Hunters fire back, Gannawarra Times, February 22, pg 6).
How is duck shooting not about “killing ducks”? The end result is dead ducks.
The difference between a duck season and an abattoir is that many ducks are left half-dead.
Duck shooting is not a “hunt”: the shooters are mostly stationary, using artificial bird-callers and fake ducks to lure waterbirds.
As for training, Game Management Authority (GMA) admits fewer than 200 duck shooters ever enrolled in its accuracy workshops.
FGA’s “conservation” is largely focused on its own Heart Morass property near Sale – now so polluted that government (Environment Protection Authority) signs prohibit the eating of its ducks.
Last time I was in Kerang, there was no signage about the world-famous Ramsar status of the region.
There were few birds on the tired wetlands.
Sadly, I doubt they would qualify as Ramsar sites if assessed today.
FGA’s claims should be taken with a large dose of salt.
Sam Williams,
Red Hill, Victoria
Health crisis urgent attention
I CAN’T begin to understand the gut-wrenching panic of finding a loved one, unconscious, moments from their last breath, only to have desperate calls to Triple Zero go unanswered.
But this is exactly the situation a regional Victorian family recently endured.
Swan Hill man Alfred Edwards, 87, passed away after his family tried to get through to emergency services for 40 minutes, powerlessly watching as their loved one slipped away. Victoria is in the midst of a healthcare crisis.
It runs through our ambulance services, our hospital and healthcare workforce, and right through to rural GP clinics.
The challenges of the pandemic and workforce isolation requirements on our hospitals have highlighted the serious problems in our health system that come after decades of neglect by the Labor Government.
Victoria has been the only state to impose a Code Brown on our hospitals. Blanket bans on elective surgery have robbed thousands of Victorians of the ability to be independent, pain free and have a better quality of life.
In rural communities, long delays to book in to see a GP or specialist and the frequent turnover of doctors is a story that’s all too common and that’s making sick people sicker. When people can’t get in to see their GP, potentially serious illnesses go undiagnosed and untreated meaning we’ll see more people coming through the public health system who are critically unwell.
Daniel Andrews has run Victoria’s health system as Premier or Health Minister for 11 of the last 15 years.
In that time, he’s presided over years of underinvestment and a lack of proper planning and preparation which has left our healthcare system unable to stand up to the extra pressure of a global pandemic.
Victoria’s healthcare crisis demands urgent attention. We need to recover and rebuild from the ground up.
Peter Walsh,
Member for Murray Plains
