Responsible duck shooting.

Maybe I am a little out of touch but I struggle with linking words like
‘good’ or ‘responsible’ in the same sentence as sporting (oxymoron?)
shooters. I am no shrinking violet and in the course of work here and
overseas I have killed countless animals in any manner from crushing roo
skulls with rocks to neat little injections. All were in the course of
euthanasia, predator control or something similar and none of it is or was
enjoyable. I have necropsied, butchery with a sharper knife, and eaten the
meat where appropriate. Going out to kill ducks for fun and some gamey,
metal filled fillets seems about as ‘good’ or ‘responsible’ as leaving the
engine going in the black urban assault vehicle when in Coles car park on a
summer’s day.

This conception that part of the cohort that happily blows ducks to powder
down, leaves roos to bleed out, feral mammals dead with live young are
‘responsible’ is about as credible as the NSW argument that letting these
peri-urban nativists loose in National Parks will assist conservation. This
forum has ventilated the ‘why’, politicians captive to vociferous minorities
and sectional interest ad nausea, perhaps it is now time to toss around how
to stop this and the broader regression to a world where our remaining
natural environment is a play pen for survivalist fantasies, pointless gas
guzzling ‘adventure’, or simply dump and wood pile in the same convenient
location.

Bird organisations won’t make much of a human chain around waterfowl habitat
but amongst their grey-haired ranks there are no shortage of educated
‘influencers’ that could make the average ALP member’s margin wince a
little. Even those city Liberals fighting off the Tree Tories might feel a
little heat if just a few of us squeezed with the right words in the right
places. I think they called it ‘Fightback’.