Image at right: American protesters lay out illegally shot birds.
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Background information
Background(Much of the information below has been abbreviated from an informative piece published in The Conversation on March 39, 2011. The piece is titled 'Ducking and weaving: should we be hunting in Australia's wetlands?' and was written by Richard Kingsford
Professor, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney. The full text can be accessed at
Early history of modern duck hunting
Modern recreational duck shooting began in the 16th century, soon after the invention of the gun. European colonists brought duck hunting to Australia and by the late 19th century, 159,000 ducks were passing through the Melbourne markets in a year.
Australian state governments soon started to declare open seasons for duck shooting, initially for most of the year (244 days) but this gradually became restricted, down to today's usual three months, beginning in March.
Timing of the duck hunting season
Hunting is timed to be outside the breeding and moulting seasons. Most ducks in southeastern Australia breed in spring and then become flightless, moulting, and renewing their feathers. Aside from these constraints, governments must decide whether to declare a duck hunting season each year. This decision is usually made based on weather conditions and duck breeding rates over the previous twelve months. This becomes the political flashpoint for claims and counter claims around animal welfare, conservation and hunting traditions.
The pro-duck hunting lobby
The pro-duck shooting camp argue that their pursuit is founded on sustainability as duck shooting primarily kills newly bred ducks, most of which would die anyway. Overseas research generally supports the contention that young birds are more naive and more likely to be shot than experienced adults.
Hunters also argue that their pursuit is steeped in tradition, passing on skills developed over generations. They often liken duck shooting to fishing where skills and traditions have developed, and the quarry is also consumed.
Finally, there is the conservation argument. Hunters are primarily interested in ensuring they can continue to hunt, and they know that, without habitat protection and creation, opportunities are diminished. Therefore, hunters in Australia and overseas are active in habitat conservation.
The anti-duck hunting lobby
The anti-duck shooting camp argue strongly on animal welfare grounds. Shotguns rely on a spray of small pellets that fan out and collide with the flying duck. Shotguns have a limited range and rely on enough pellets hitting the duck to fatally wound it. This does not always happen, and a duck may have sufficient mobility to escape and die later, even if the shot brings the bird down. The suffering of the bird in these circumstances is stressed.
The conservation argument focuses on the effects of duck shooting on populations of the eight game species in southeastern Australia.
In the past, lead poisoning of ducks and other waterbirds was a problem. Lead pellets from shotguns would lie dormant in the wetland where they were later picked up by ducks, mistaking them for small rocks which they normally eat to grind up of their food. Steel pellets are now used, except for quail hunting, where lead pellets are still used.
Finally, there is considerable concern that non-target species, including rare species, are also shot.
Bans and reforms
Anti-duck shooting groups have successfully campaigned for the banning of recreational duck shooting in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. The practice is still legal in South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania.
Education and waterfowl identification tests (WITs) have significantly improved the problem of shooting threatened species. In the early 1990s, for example, more than 200 waterbirds from 24 non-target species, including grebes, freckled duck, herons and swans, were shot on two wetlands in New South Wales.
Duck hunting is highly contentious in Victoria. In 2023, The Victorian Government launched a review into duck and quail hunting, which attracted more than 10,000 public submissions - the most ever received by a parliamentary committee in the state.
On August 30, 2023, the recommendations of the Inquiry into Victoria's Recreational Native Bird Hunting Arrangements were released. One of its recommendations was a ban on seasonal hunting because of concerns about the falling number of native birds. It also said the practice had caused an 'unacceptable wounding and death rate' of threatened bird species. However, the other seven recommendations all dealt with ways of reducing these problems (assuming a ban were not implemented).
Despite the mixed nature of the recommendations, commentators anticipated that duck and quail hunting would be banned in the Victoria before the 2024 season.
However, on January 29, 2024, the Victorian Labor government, under new premier Jacinta Allan, announced that the recreational hunting of waterfowl would not be prohibited. The outdoor recreation minister, Steve Dimopoulos, said the government had not changed its stance on duck and quail hunting but would introduce changes from 2025 to make the practices safer and 'more sustainable'.