Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

On 6 March, the Tasmanian duck hunting season begins. Over the three-month season, it's estimated that almost 50,000 ducks will be shot. Some will be killed outright, but as many as 13,000 will be wounded and left to suffer a slow and painful death. Shockingly, a survey of licensed duck hunters in Victoria just last year found that 80 per cent of hunters could not reliably tell the difference between permitted and non-target species and only one in 10 had any idea of how to humanely kill wounded birds. According to Jan Davis of the RSPCA in Tasmania, there's simply no reason to believe that the situation would be any better in Tasmania. The fact is: there is simply no way to hunt ducks humanely because there will always be a significant margin of error, which means there will always be wounded creatures dying in agony and there will always be the risk of hunters hitting the wrong bird.

I join with a great many Tasmanians in calling on the Tasmanian government to make this year's duck hunting season the state's last. Victoria has shortened its seasons, while New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia banned the barbaric slaughter years ago. It's cruel, it's unnecessary and it should be outlawed in Tasmania as well.

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