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Cartoon at right by Chris 'ROY' Taylor
Further implications
It appears that duck hunting is likely to be banned within Victoria and perhaps in South Australia within the next decade. There are three primary drivers behind this. Firstly, public support for the activity is in steady decline and secondly, the number of people shooting ducks is falling. Finally, underlying the above trends, popular support for animal wellbeing is also increasing.Declining support for duck hunting is evident in both Victoria and South Australia. Victoria, as the region with the greatest number of wetlands, is the principal duck-hunting state in Australia. However, statistics from Victoria reveal the lack of wide-spread support for the sport. Different survey results show that between 68 and 87 percent of Victorians want the practice banned.
It has also been noted that very few Victorians take part in duck hunting. A 2014 Australia Institute survey revealed that less than half of one percent of Victorians were active duck hunters. Further, the number of people hunting ducks appears to be in decline. Estimates suggest only 11,549 hunters hunted in 2022, meaning only 0.17 percent of the Victorian population is now actively participating in duck hunting. The situation is similar in South Australia, where a 2020 poll found that nearly 75 percent of those surveyed supported a ban on duck and quail hunting. The number of duck hunters is also low in Tasmania where BirdLife Tasmania estimates that there were just over 1,100 active duck hunters - about 0.2 percent of the Tasmanian population. However, despite the low participation rate, there appears to be greater community support for hunting in Tasmania. Thus, the Tasmanian government has no plans to ban recreational duck hunting and claims that recent surveys of wildfowl populations have not raised any new concerns. Prior to their re-election in May 2021, the Tasmanian government pledged to 'Continue to protect the Tasmanian tradition of recreational hunting and sporting shooting which is a way of life for many Tasmanian families.' Popular opinion in Victoria and South Australia appears to have shifted away from support for duck hunting in part because of changing demographics. The urbanisation rate in Australia, always high, is becoming greater. Since the 1960s, Australia's urbanisation rate has consistently been above 80 percent, and in 2021 it has reached its highest ever rate at 86.36 percent. Historically, Australia has been one of the most urbanised countries in the world, due to high rates of immigration since the 20th century, with new arrivals generally settling in coastal and urban areas.
Carmen McCleod, Research Fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand, has stated, 'To most individuals, living in urbanised and industrialised societies...killing animals has become an unfamiliar process, making it hard to grasp why hunters choose to shoot animals when there is no longer a dependence on wild animals for food-particularly when meat can be purchased from a supermarket conveniently packaged and "de-animalised."' Rural areas are traditionally more supportive of hunting practices as shooting wild and domestic animals and slaughtering livestock are established elements of farm management. Thus, as a greater proportion of Australians live in cities and suburbs, support for and the practice of hunting has declined. Interestingly, however, support for duck hunting is also declining in regional areas. In research conducted by Kantar Public, of metropolitan residents 68 percent are opposed to duck hunting; however, 60 percent oppose it in regional Victoria. This suggests an attitude change in areas that have traditionally supported duck hunting.
Here, opposition to duck hunting seems to indicate that urbanisation is also affecting rural areas. Kerrie Allen from Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting notes the overwhelming feedback her group received when surveying people in duck shooting locations was about 'fears for safety, pellets landing on people's roofs which collect their water supply, horses going through fences, children were traumatised'. Duck shooting, she said, is happening less than 30 metres from some back doors. The primary reason for opposing duck hunting appears to be concern for the wellbeing of the animals that are hunted. International research has suggested an increasing concern among most developed countries for animal welfare. An article published on March 16, 2020, in Psychology Today, has argued that this is linked to a growing awareness of animal sentience, that is, the capacity of animals to feel pain.
It is interesting to note that the pain inflicted on hunted animals is often the first argument offered by groups against hunting. In its opposition to duck hunting in Australia, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) argues, 'Every year in Victoria, around 300,000 water birds are blasted out of the sky, all for the sake of "sport". For each bird killed outright, another is wounded and left to die slowly and in agony.' The same point is the primary argument offered by the RSPCA in its campaign against duck shooting. The RSPCA states, 'Some of these ducks are killed outright. Some will be wounded, brought down and killed on retrieval. Many others will be crippled or wounded but not found and will slowly die over the following hours or days, suffering prolonged pain and distress.' Those who support duck hunting claim that preserving animal welfare is an inconsistent argument against duck hunting, as the people making this argument frequently purchase packaged meat products whose manufacture involves the suffering of animals. Though this is true, there is now a growing opposition to farming practices that cause animals to suffer. A recent report commissioned by the federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources suggests the majority of Australians care about all aspects of animal welfare. The 2019 report included a survey of 1,521 people: 95 percent of respondents viewed farm animal welfare with concern, and 91 percent want reform to address this.