the opening of the 2011 duck hunting season in victoria took us to the small north-western town of donald (not a single pun will here be written). without casting too harsh a light on the entire population, this was a town where shop windows were decorated with pictures of soon to be ex-ducks, where cwa-type women were selling field and game badges outside the iga like they were pedalling a charity, and the sole entertainment for children seemed to be fishing for carp off bridges and throwing them onto the road to await asphyxiation or mutilation by passing car.
high rainfall in the area had seen native waterbirds flock to newly enlarged bodies of water such as lake buloke and there were countess families with ducklings who were about to become orphans, if not ‘game’ themselves. for them, we waded in neck deep before sunrise, despite a heavy presence of department of sustainability and environment officers itching to issue us with fines for entering the water before 10 am.
in particular this year’s opening showcased the sick pleasure taken in the suffering of these animals. a wildlife victoria member witnessed a shooter with an entire bag of wounded and struggling birds, who refused to kill them, and had to be escorted off the water by dse. my boyfriend and i were standing in front of two shooters, and had been there for at least 20 minutes before one of them started to pack up, pulling up a still flapping duck from behind him. we yelled at him to break its neck. he ripped the head off the still live bird and threw it at luke. its eyes were still open. another rescuer and i saw two openly twisted hunters bring down a bird, and proceed to circle it with their boat as they fired all around it, further inflicting terror and pain. this unequivocal torture went on for as long as ten minutes. let me just stress, that contrary to the claims of the social media savvy shooters, ethical hunting does not exist and these people are brought to the wetlands because they take delight in acting out against the small, innocent and defenseless.
on the sunday, a smaller group of us travelled to the mcdonalds wetland in kerang. we arrived shortly after 10 am to search the reeds for injured birds and the corpses of those left behind as they were too small, fell too far into the reeds to bother pursuing, or belonged to a more common, lower point scoring species. whilst we were able to bring in one blackhead duck for treatment, we found the bodies of 21 birds, including a coot which had been shot- a bird that bears absolutely no resemblance to a duck (it was one of two recovered), a slightly older duckling who had again been shot- despite protestations that no young birds were being fired upon, and one of three protected plumed whistling ducks. this one had a broken neck, so had obviously been dumped by a hunter who it would seem, like many of their kind, was completely unfamiliar with the species list.
on both days we saw the number of ducklings effected by the massacre. heartbreakingly, groups of orphaned babies of various ages banded together, relentlessly trawling the decoy ducks laid out by hunters in search of their murdered parents. rescuers brought in several young ducklings who had died of stress and shock, but the number of dead will quickly rise as these infants are now left alone to starve to death.
and then of course, although secondary and minor to the horror that was brought upon the birds, there was the offenses against rescuers. most notably, of course, the shooting of julia. the perpetrator, allegedly a 14 year old boy, fired low on the water and embedded pellets in her face and hands, thankfully just missing her eyes and temple. another female rescuer was pushed by a hunter who also took some kind of sick, sexual pleasure in a rubbing a dead duck along her body. i witnessed the two older hunters who tormented the injured bird first speed up alongside a female kayaker and spray her with water, and then attempt to ram her. she was also threatened with death by a hunter on a separate occasion.
no matter how they try to justify it by saying we shouldn’t have been there, they haven’t got a leg to stand on. there are many places people should not be, but it does not wipe the slate clean for you to shoot them. furthermore, the law that punishes us for entering the water before 10 am serves no purpose other than to ensure that field and game can have the smoothest opening weekend possible. if it was an issue of our safety, it would apply to any other day of the three month hunting season. if we were to only go in after 10 o’clock, it would simply be too late for many of the birds that we are able to save, and we can also prevent further deaths by averting ducks from locations with hunters waiting.
it was also clarified for me just how much the dse were there to act as the personal bodyguards of the hunters. shooters would simply call them over to fine us and remove us from the water. a blind eye was turned to those hunters who were firing on protected species, firing from moving boats, leaving smaller or more common birds either dead or dying so as not to fill up their bag limit, holding their weapons incorrectly when traveling between locations, and not to mention the volume of rubbish and shells thoughtlessly left behind.
as it stands, what took place this weekend highlights the absolute barbarity and primitive mentality of the shooters. adult guardians were spitting the most venomous streams of ignorant sexist, homophobic and personal insults, and encouraging the children with them to do so. in julia’s situation, the 14 year old is alleged to have been taunting her right up until he shot her. despite what their obviously overworked publicist says, these shooters aren’t the kind of people who only kill what they intend to eat, they are not respectful or ethical in their choices and we see constantly in their behaviour towards native wildlife, and rescuers, that they have obvious issues with anger and violence and yet for some reason are enabled by law to indoctrinate children as young as 12 to their sickening way of behaving.
if the rest of the public could see what really goes on during duck season, and how the hunters really conduct themselves, there wouldn’t be any indecisiveness. duck hunting would be banned in this state as it is in others.
what needs to happen, is an end needs to be called to this archaic blood sport, which passes on traits of animal cruelty, brutality, insensitivity to suffering, masochism and misogyny from generation to generation. any claims the hunters lay to legitimacy are intrinsically false, and fed down to them from the top of the organisation who profit from their membership. duck hunting in victoria is not sustainable, it is not environmentally friendly and in no way is it anything close to ethical.
