From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 14 May

My brother was an inveterate shooter. It was how he and his mates filled their time on the weekend. They took the jalopy into the bush and shot anything which flew, or walked, across their path.

I REMEMBER vividly he owned a double-barrelled shotgun which kicked like a mule and left him with a permanently bruised shoulder; a .22 rifle fitted with a telescopic lens and with which I learned to shoot; and a .303 rifle which dropped a donkey or a kangaroo from 500 metres.

While I was badgered into participating, it was not something I relished. Looking back through the prism of 2023, it is impossible to remember what I thought; however, I know as an adult I am not enamoured of blood sports.

My brother shot, wedge-tailed eagles, pink and grey galahs – which were cooked and eaten with polenta, pigeons (common bronzewing, crested, and feral or rock dove), wild donkeys, kangaroos, and brush-turkeys.

Lead is a toxic substance which can harm humans, wildlife, and the environment. While it is illegal in duck shooting, the most common lead poisoning in birds is considered to be the result of ingestion of spent lead shot used for waterfowl hunting. Therefore, the use of lead shot for duck hunting is prohibited throughout Victoria. It includes duck hunting on all wetlands, waterways and dry lands, and on public and private land.

Scaremongering is a nonsense, and should be outlawed. It serves only to advance the narrative of the opposing party, and is, invariably, filled with appalling inaccuracies, and created from a subjective standpoint.

Civilisation as we know it will not collapse without duck shooting. Local economies will not be rent asunder; regional Victoria will not become a tourist pariah; families will not be relegated to workhouses; indeed hardly any – if any – of the devastating predictions will come to be pass.

The duck shooting season in Australia is not the same as the United Kingdom’s Glorious Twelfth. While I do not shoot, I am an excellent guest; consequently, I have, in the past, been invited to several grand estate house shooting parties. There is no comparison between the British guns, where Harris tweed coats and knitted ties are de rigueur for the weekend and high vis is considered a faux pas, and the shooters one sees overrunning the wetlands of Victoria.

Many consider blood sports – and duck shooting is a blood sport – most disagreeable. It is an extremely cruel pastime, and the Game Management Authority acknowledges between six and 40 per cent of ducks are injured. Winged, they die slowly in great agony. In research commissioned by the GMA only 20 per cent of respondents correctly identified game ducks.

Disturbingly, in 2020, the commissioned research indicated only 13 per cent of shooter respondents answered correctly when asked about dispatching downed ducks.

As public calls for a duck hunting ban in Victoria intensify, it has been suggested two in three Victorians (66 per cent) are opposed to the shoot.

The ending of the practice is not about encroaching on civil liberties; or a deprivation of choice. It is an enlightened appreciation of our wildlife and the place it occupies in the eternal scheme of being. Ducks are sentient. They feel pain, experience emotion; are capable of compassion; are intelligent. They are aware of themselves, and their environment.

With time, mores change; we develop; perspectives alter. Is it time to re-think the pointless shooting of ducks, and the calling of killing a sport?

Consider… perhaps it’s not all it’s quacked-up to be!

Roland can be contacted via [email protected].