Wetland habitats under fire again as inhumane duck hunting begins in SA

Native waterbirds who are legally protected for most of the year are once again suffering as shotgun wielding hunters invade their wetland habitats.

Footage taken on Saturday – the first day of South Australia’s open season on native waterbirds – has again proven that widescale animal suffering is inevitable due to the unavoidable wounding of birds pierced by shotgun pellets, many of them hit while in flight.

The footage – taken at Lake George, Beachport and provided to RSPCA South Australia – shows:

• Windmilling (holding a wounded duck by its head and swinging it in circles in an effort to kill it, which is neither a reliable nor a legally acceptable method).
• Wounded ducks suffering prolonged deaths due to shooters not promptly killing them and/or not using an acceptable killing method.
• Shooters continuing to shoot at other ducks before first retrieving and killing the one they have just wounded.
• Shooters appearing to consume alcohol whilst shooting.
• Unbroken shot guns (for safety, the requirement is to have the gun broken when not shooting).
• Shooters firing into flocks of ducks.
• Failure to supervise children during shooting activity and allowing them to windmill wounded ducks (trying to kill them).
• A dead duck floating in the lake, unretrieved by hunters.
• Ducks continuing to fly after being struck by pellets before succumbing to their injuries and dropping from the sky sometime later. Their deaths can be painful and prolonged.

The individuals who witnessed and filmed these activities believe they observed several potential breaches of permit conditions for duck hunting in SA. They have advised RSPCA SA that they intend to submit a formal complaint to the regulator (the Department of Environment and Water – DEW).

The RSPCA is not opposed to killing animals for food but maintains that killing methods must guarantee a quick, humane death. Using a shotgun to kill native birds does not meet this requirement.

“Successive polls and responses to the ongoing Animal Welfare Act review demonstrate overwhelming community support for banning duck hunting,” said RSPCA SA Animal Welfare Advocate, Dr Rebekah Eyers.

“At a time when we’re promoting the greater Adelaide region as the first National Park City in the southern hemisphere, it makes no sense to be allowing hunters to fire away at our native birds.

“These beautiful wetland habitats are natural assets to grow ecotourism and bird watching, and that aligns with this global movement’s mission to support human wellbeing through greater connection with nature.”

The RSPCA wants South Australia to catch up with NSW, WA and QLD, all of which banned recreational bird hunting decades ago. The Australian Veterinary Association also supports an end to the activity on the basis that it causes high rates of bird wounding.

---

Background Information

The 2024 duck hunt season in SA is scheduled to run from Saturday 16 March to Sunday 30 June. It will allow the shooting of seven duck species:  grey teal, chestnut teal, Pacific black duck, Australian shelduck (mountain duck), maned (wood) duck, pink-eared duck and hardhead. (The pink-eared duck and hardhead duck were not permitted species in the 2023 season. Hardheads are listed as ‘threatened’ in Victoria and – given that ducks fly across state borders it is particularly disturbing that they are permitted to be shot during the current South Australian season.)

Individual shooters are permitted to (kill) and ‘bag’ ten ducks each per day, which is two more than last year. These ‘bag’ quotas do not include the significant number of birds that shooters are likely to injure whilst attempting to kill and bag ten ducks.

Australian research estimates at least one in four birds hit will be injured, not killed outright. Many of these will escape and drown or die slowly from starvation, infection, predation or dehydration.  This figure is likely to be an underestimate of wounding because it does not include the ducks that fly on with embedded shotgun pellets, to die later.

This figure also does not include the number of shot, wounded ducks retrieved by hunters who suffer a prolonged, painful death, due to shooters’ failure to promptly retrieve and kill them by an approved humane method or to check for signs of death before leaving the ducks they have shot unattended.

For more information on this issue: https://www.rspcasa.org.au/the-issues/duck-hunting/

---