Changes made to coming duck season

THE coming duck season will see a number of changes, including a ban on pre-dawn shooting on the first weekend and hunters having to collect all the birds they shoot.

The 2018 season will start on March 17, and will close on June 11.

The bag limit will remain at 10 birds per person per day but, like last year, hunting the Blue-winged Shoveler will be prohibited due to persistent low numbers of the species.

Game Management Authority (GMA) chair Brian Hine said the authority’s staff had worked throughout 2017 in consultation with hunting, animal welfare and conservation stakeholders, departments and the state government to strengthen duck hunting regulation.

“The greatest challenge to regulating duck hunting occurs on the opening weekend of the season.

“Last year’s opening weekend saw some hunters engage in entirely unacceptable behaviour including early shooting, shooting protected species and failing to retrieve shot birds.”

As a result, on the opening weekend, hunting will start at 9am on the Saturday and 8am on the Sunday across the state as part of a trial of opening the season during daylight hours.

For the rest of the season, hunting times will revert to half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Mr Hine said new regulations would formalise what is already standard practice for most responsible hunters.

“Hunters will now be required to retrieve all game ducks that they shoot, and will be required to at least salvage the breast meat from a duck to ensure that harvested game is not wasted.”

In February, the GMA will also raise the minimum pass mark for the Waterfowl Identification Test from 75 per cent to 85 per cent.

RSPCA chief executive officer Dr Liz Walker said the society was pleased to see the change to the bag limit, but hoped the GMA’s Shotgunning Education Program would become mandatory for all hunters and also have a practical component to reduce the high risk of wounding birds.

Victorian Nationals Leader Peter Walsh criticised the changes. He said Labor was “desperate to keep the Greens on-side” and had “taken no notice of advice from informed stakeholder groups that strongly argued against the restrictions”.