Horrified by Hunting? You Know, That's Ok.

I know many hunters that find themselves in the pretty odd position of justifying their decision to bring food home for their families. It is odd because what we're doing is fundamentally at the heart of our existence: we're providing for our families - just in a slightly different fashion than heading down to the local Coles.

One of the reasons I hunt, and there are quite a number, is that for me it is a way of assuming total responsibility for the process of sourcing meat for my family's table. From the outset I am in control of the process: I chose the beast from which the meat will ultimately come from, how it is killed and how it is treated and prepared, ready for consumption. At no point do I outsource a part of this process; I own it wholly.

In utilising a wild beast, there is the added benefit of the beast having the least possible chance of suffering at the hand of man. It has lived a life - ignoring the fact it is exotic - as nature intended and you can't get much more free-range than that!

I firmly believe that we, not as hunters but as humans, should have the freedom of choice when it comes to sourcing our food. We should have the right to be guided by our own morals and our values and if those morals and values deliver us to hunting as being our preferred means of sourcing food, we should have the freedom to pursue that path.

I can only imagine the hysteria (and justifiably so) if individuals were robbed of the right to choose whether or not to grow their own vegetables or harvest their own water. It would be grossly unfair, some may even say a denial of a basic human right, if that were to occur. Why is hunting any different?

I don't think for a moment that we're about "converting" anyone to subscribe to a life philosophy of providing for one's family on any scale. Far be it for me, or anyone, to dictate to another how they should live their lives, but I and the hundreds of thousands of hunters across Australia would certainly appreciate that same courtesy be returned.

So if you're horrified by hunting, that's ok, just don't try to stop me.

The Deceit Runs Deeper Than Hunting

The Government’s decision to summarily abolish the Game Council and its impact goes far beyond recreational hunters; it has shown just how contemptuous Barry O’Farrell and his Government is and the regard with which he holds regional and rural NSW.

It is true that some 20,000 licensed, law abiding hunters have now been locked out of public lands and that the future of hunting is on shaky ground and it would be of little surprise that there is strong resentment within that group – and shooters and hunters generally.

The effect though will echo throughout regional NSW.

The recently released Public Benefit Assessment Report of the Game Council’s activities in the 12 months to April 2013 was glowing in its assessment of the benefit restricted and game licensed hunters have presented.

For regional NSW, the annual economic injection amounts to almost $65 million – all of which is spent outside of the major metropolitan areas. In a time where economic hardship is a grim reality for many smaller towns and shires, in a time when orchards are being ripped from the ground, in a time when huge corporations are buying up vast tracts of formerly family farmed land, every cent of that $65m will be sorely missed. What the knock-on effect will be, only time will reveal. 

The Assessment also revealed that the impact of restricted licensed hunters on public lands, that is State Forests, is so great Forests NSW now no longer spends any funds worthy of mention on feral and pest animal control. In fact the lost opportunity to Forests NSW is now approaching $2.4 million – a figure that one can now assume they will have to try and find to discharge their duty to continue to control feral and pest animals. The reality is that Mr O’Farrell has overseen the end of the halcyon days for Forests NSW. 

His decision also demonstrates his absolute contempt for primary producers. In the weeks since the abolition of the Game Council, there have been articles in various media outlets warning of the pending explosion of feral pigs, of the very real threat to rangeland wool growing from wild dogs and even just the other day a report of a young boy being gored by a wild pig. In this instance Mr O’Farrell has turned his back on primary producers and has hung them out to dry.

But the deceit runs deeper, the contempt more venomous. A number of ministers have been quoted as having the ambition to introduce a tenure-blind approach to pest animal control: one set of rules for National Parks, for State Forests and for public land. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if they objectively assessed the different methods currently employed across the various tenures and implemented the most effective and most efficient, but given Mr O’Farrell’s summary beheading of the most successful and most efficient, it would appear a cold day in Hell would be more likely than this model being implemented across all tenures.

If it is to be believed the Government want to impose the grossly inefficient model of pest animal management that is currently proposed for National Parks across freehold land - across your land. They cite the model of bushfire management as the successful big brother whose footsteps pest animal control will follow, but one only needs to look to the Warrumbungles and the catastrophic fire that razed 95% of the National Park to glean an indication how successful National Parks has been in managing bushfires.

But the most telling fact in this sordid tale is the reason for all that is listed above. If there were serious, life threatening, corrupt or criminal undercurrents at work in the Game Council, one may understand Mr O’Farrell’s decision. If there were a history of injuries and deaths then it may be justifiable. But we are not. In over 80,000 hunting days by some 20,000 restricted license hunters, there was not a single serious injury reported, let alone a fatality.

In essence the Game Council was the Government’s highest performing unit. Yes, there were issues with governance but these were not insurmountable by any stretch of the imagination. All that was needed was additional funding. To put it bluntly, Mr O’Farrell’s decision was akin to shooting your best working dog because he needed his claws trimmed.

This whole affair, for all the bad, also gave us a wonderful insight into the character of Mr O’Farrell.

If the Shooters and Fishers Party MLC’s are to be believed – and there’s no reason not to, I haven't seen anything from Mr O'Farrell to deny this – Mr O’Farrell gave them his word that he would consult with them on the findings of the Dunn report prior to any announcement or policy shift being made. The reality though could not have been further from what was promised. Instead Messrs Brown and Borsack did not find out until the decision had been made and the story was breaking across media outlets.

I want to stress this, because it goes a long way in highlighting Mr O’Farrell’s character: he did not make any outlandish or radical promises. He did not promise to enshrine hunting on public land time in perpetuity. He did not promise to grant National Parks to the Shooters & Fishers, he did not promise to cement the Game Council in its existence forever more. 

His promise was a very simple one; it was simply to talk to those whose constituents would be most affected but he couldn’t even keep that simple promise.

What sort of leader is it that acts so quickly and so irrationally that he cannot honour a very simple undertaking given to fellow colleagues? Is this someone who can be trusted? Is it someone the people of NSW can have confidence in?

And where were the Nationals in all of this? Where were the flag bearers of regional NSW, the knights of the primary producers? They were standing there, by his side as he rang the death knell of the most successful pest animal control program in the history of Australia. They stood there as he turned his back on regional NSW and threatened to jeopardise $65m of vital economic benefit. They stood by his side as he gave primary producers the bird and finally they stood there as he committed a gross act of political bastadry all in the name of power and authority.

The Greens: Champions of the Wasteful & Disrespectful Destruction of Animals

So in my blog The Greens and the Pursuit of Ideology I went through some of the issues that challenge the Greens due to their dogmatic pursuit of their chosen ideology.

Well yesterday, late in the evening, another one to add to the list came to light.

Greens federal election candidate Scott Campbell-Smith  has admitted that he hunts deer... sorry, that should be he shoots deer on his property.

According to the article on the Weekly Times website (Greens deer hunt admission), Mr Campbell-Smith has deemed the deer to be a pest on his property. The article doesn't outline the damage the deer cause, and being only a few acres, one could reasonably assume that his losses, whatever they are, aren't exactly financially draining; it is far more likely to be the odd backyard vege or rose bush getting a flogging.

Now the Greens have, as one of their aims, "A ban on recreational shooting of all animals, including Australian native water birds". There are no misgivings about their intent with this one: they want to see the end of hunting in Australia, not just on public land, National Parks, State Forests etc, but across all land tenures.

So it has to be asked, does Mr Campbell-Smith's actions fly in the face of one of his party's core aims?

Well not according to him it doesn't.

As I alluded to above, the Greens aren't so naive as to not support the control of pest animals and in this regard they believe that shooting pest animals - by professionals I might add - is acceptable. Mr Campbell-Smith has deemed the deer on his property to be a pest so his actions fall within the party policy, sans professional.

But what is the difference between recreational hunting and pest animal control when undertaken by the landholder or an agent of the landholder (i.e. not a 'professional')?

From what I can gather, the main point of difference is actually pretty simple: when undertaking pest animal control, the animals killed are left to rot in the paddock, or to become a food source for other pest animals - foxes, wild dogs and pigs. When recreational hunting though, it is incumbent upon the hunter to use as much of that animals as possible - the meat and the pelt of course being the two most common resources.

Not only is there the moral obligation to use whatever one can from an animal harvested from the wild, it is also a sign of respect of the quarry that their life - regardless of whether it is deemed to be a pest or not - be of value in the end. To simply shoot an animal and leave it to rot when its meat could be harvested is grossly disrespectful.

We can go even further though and glean from the recent events that the Greens aren't just about the abolition of recreational hunting, but are indeed about the abolition of the right of an individual to feed themselves and their family from the land, even when their quarry is an introduced species!!!

So, is this really what the Greens stand for, the wasteful, disrespectful destruction of animals? And more shockingly the revocation of the right of an individual to feed themselves and their family with meat harvested from the landscape?

National Parks & Wildlife Services - a Model for Inefficiencies

In her recent announcement about the trialling of volunteers taking part in orchestrated culls, The Hon. Robyn Parker - Minister for Environment & Heritage - established that any volunteer hunter would be held to the same standard as NPWS staff.

"volunteer participants [will be] held to an
equivalent high standard that currently applies to NPWS staff and contractors" - Ms Parker

 This is a wonderful sentiment and I applaud the ambition of her statement. However, if only the reality were true.

The sad truth is that National Parks are grossly under-resourced and the skill of their staff, particularly those in higher management roles, leaves a lot to be desired.

In the photo below, supplied by a friend who frequents the area, we can see the impact of wild pigs on the riparian zone of a river that is listed as critical habitat for the endangered Macquarie Perch. One of the key threatening processes for the Macquarie Perch is siltation of deep water holes and spawning grounds and it doesn't take a genius to work out that if this particular river were to rise only a few centimetres, highly mobile and dispersive sediment would begin to wash into the river. The fellow who supplied this photo detailed a number of complaints to various NSW Gov. departments, including NPWS, however almost two months on nothing has been done.

Erosion from foraging feral pigs. The river in the background is identified
critical habitat for the endangered Macquarie Perch. 

It is a sad reality that this scene is repeated across many National Parks. I have seen similar damage across vast areas of the Coxs River in the Blue Mountains National Park. Interestingly the appearance of pigs in this case followed the change of land tenure from private to public.

It is not all about a lack of feral animal management though.

In the summer just gone we were witness to perhaps one of the most devastating incidences of destruction by neglect, when the Wambelong bushfire razed over 95% of the Warrumbungle National Park in northern NSW (Monster bushfire ravages Warrumbungle NP, Warrumbungle National Park sprouts regrowth after catastrophic bushfire). It is almost inconceivable that 95% of a National Park can be razed in this day and age.

Since the fire, heavy criticism has been leveled at its management in its early stages, management that fell to NPWS.  Irrespective of any neglect in the years prior to the devastating fire through a failure to maintain fire trails, conduct hazard reduction operations, etc, the decisions made in the first few hours of the fire - it ultimately led to the scorching of over 54,000Ha, 53 homes razed and hundreds of livestock burnt - highlights the NPWS management's inability to manage bushfires.

On top of all this, there are now allegations of corrupt behaviour - sufficient to dismiss one ranger - where it is alleged benefits were accepted in return for allowing poachers access to the Paroo-Darling National Park in far western NSW. One has to question: is the governance in place is robust enough if this sort of behaviour can occur (National Parks and Wildlife Service deals with drugs for hunting scandal in NSW's west)?

All in all, the Minister's assertion that NPWS are the epitome of public land managers is evidence of just how out of touch she is with what is occurring on the ground. The truth is that NPWS management have failed numerous times to achieve the objectives of National Parks. The suggestion that it is these people that will oversee any planned pest control shoots is a dangerous one - they have failed so far in many of their undertakings, what's to say they'll reverse this form when peoples' lives are at stake?