Shooters allowed to hunt in national parks is totally wrong and it's only a matter of time before native birds and marsupials become the victims of this absurd law, what are our politicians thinking or are they thinking at all.
| Term and Conditions | Privacy Statement | Web Support by Gaia Resources Hosted by Serversaurus |  |
Sporting Shooter friends of mine provide a valuable service in reducing feral animal numbers in our national parks. Indeed they kill goats, foxes and cats in Gluepot Reserve.
Doublebar, if I remember rightly, you live in NSW where former premier Barry O'Barrel saw himself beholden to the Shooters & Fishers Party (or whatever they're called) in the upper house in order to get legislation passed. I believe that as a payoff to the SFP he allowed shooting in national parks & that shooting was for recreation purposes but someone may want to correct me on that.
If, since the last state election, the government no longer needs the support of the SFP then any shooting in national parks should, in my opinion, be strictly for vermin extermination under strict conditions with training (especially in minimum disturbance), supervision, monitoring & evaluation. And it should end once the vermin are gone.
Even if the government still needs SFP support it should adopt this approach if it hasn't already as national parks can ill-afford to have gungho gun hombres out there upholding the Australian tradition of shooting anything that moves, including docile bird watchers.
Agree with you there Woko. Shooting done by my friends is strictly monitored and regulated and the last
thing I would like to see is uncontrolled shooting access, that would be a recipe for disaster. Shooters & Fishers party
in an upperhouse are not usually any more than a minority with a senate spot due to a flawed system.
My friends are practical conservationists with a deep respect for our native wildlife, but I do understand that not all shooters fit this description.
double bar has a point if it involved unsupervised shooting in our parks for "hunting" but I doubt that this would be the case and would be happy to have more information provided in a non emotive way to help clarify what is actually being proposed.
I would imagine there would be severe pressure from everyone involved in the National Parks and Wildlife service to resist any changes that would be detrimental to the well being Australian wildlife in our parks.
Cheers
Woko I was about to totaly agree with you (which I think would have been a first) Untill the last 15 words ,I don't recall a Australian tradition of shooting bird watchers !
There has always been hunting in state parks and reserves in Victoria and most do the right thing, I have never met a gungho hombre but I'm sure there out there and I agree we need stronger laws to weed them out, people have to remember shooting in Australia is a privlege and not a right.
I have been a shooter and a nember of the Victorian field and game all of my adult life and have shot clay targets international level so I'm a fairly good shot and was taught bushcraft from an early age but I have met guys who call themselves hunters who could literally not hit the side of a barn and couldn't find their way back to the car without a GPS .
Training supervision, monitoring & evaluation all these things are so important but sadly lacking in Australia, in some countries like finland you have to proove that you know what your doing and that you can hit a moving target before you can get a permit to go hunting and you have to show that permit to buy ammunition,I would like to see something similar here I think it would weed out any ratbags who couldn't or wouldn't do the training.
Back to the national parks ,there was a post about this early last year and my stand on this has not changed I think its a "very bad idea" to just open up the parks to shooters ,there has to be some strick controls working with the park rangers to eliminate ferals in specific areas and a permit system to control nunbers ,with "harsh penalties" for anyone found shooting without a permit
You're right, sparrow. There isn't a tradition of shooting bird watchers but the point I obtusely made is that if there are hunters at large in national parks then bird watchers, along with many other creatures, are endangered. That said, I recall the shooting of two bird watchers at an outback dam many years ago so bird watchers are not a protected species.
Sorry Woko, I shouldn't have been so tongue in cheek on such a serious subject, if you remember from last time I am aganst the whole idea of hunting in N/parks I think it was a stupid thing to offer to the SFP just to get their vote.
I think we're all on the same page here we're just looking at it from different angles.
No worries, sparrow. If it wan't for different angles we wouldn't have squares & triangles.