Animal activists slam NSW plan to pay bounty hunters for feral animal kills

West Australian

2 days ago

A controversial plan to introduce bounty killings for feral animals and expand hunting rights would 'turn NSW into a South African game park', opponents have claimed.
The NSW government came under fire this week after Premier Chris Minns floated the idea of paying shooters for bounties for feral animals, including cats and pigs.
The proposal forms part of sweeping reforms proposed by the NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party to hunting rights, including a new minister for hunting.
NSW Animal Justice Party MLC Emma Hurst said the Bill would 'take us backward' and bounty killings as a means of population control did not work.
'We know even just from research that these bounty programs don't work, but of course it also allows for extreme animal cruelty,' Ms Hurst said.
'There's no proper sort of oversight or accountability into these programs. It's encouraging a bloodbath for animals.
'The argument that's put forward by the Shooters (party) is that these animals are introduced.
'Therefore, we can do whatever we sort of want to them and we should ignore what animal cruelty is happening to them.
'They have the ability to feel pain and fear and we shouldn't be encouraging some kind of extreme Rambo-style killing spree on these animals within the communities.'
Ms Hurst said the Bill, which seeks to open up Crown land to hunting, would 'essentially turn NSW into a South African game park' and waste taxpayer money.
She urged for more species-specific control measure for feral animals in NSW, including the use of immunocontraceptive darting that is used overseas.
Several feral and invasive species are active in the state, including feral pigs, deer, and camels as well as wild dogs and feral cats.
Shooters MLC Rod Borsak said the Bill was about incorporating NSW's about 200,000 licensed hunters into 'the conservation hunting paradigm'.
'The whole idea is to try and develop a system of co-operation … something that brings the recreational hunting side of things into the conservation paradigm,' he said.
He went on to add that bounties would 'increase the incentive to farmers and to conservation hunters to go out there and target the animals that we think are important'.
Mr Borsak stressed the possibility of bounties to target feral cats that attack native fauna and are 'impossible' to control under the government's current 'instruments'.
The long-term Legislative Council representative dismissed the notion that the bounty plan would result in a 'free for all', citing longstanding regulation and safety measures.
'There's a whole lot of rules around all this stuff that has been tried and true for the last 20 years,' Mr Borsak said, referencing concerns about firearms safety.
'Anyone trying to run a scare campaign is moaning in the face of the evidence of what's actually occurred in two or three million hectares of public land in the last 20 years.'
Under the plan, a $1m 'pot' would be available for feral pig snouts, which Mr Borsak said could sell for $15-30, with another $1m pool for wild dogs, foxes, and cats.
Mr Borsak described hunting as a 'mainstream' activity that 'really benefits rural and regional NSW primarily, and we really should be recognising that'.
Under the Bill, spotlighting and the proposed use of thermal scopes would not be allowed on Crown land, including state forests.
Nor would the hunting bounty scheme – or any hunting at all – be allowed within national parks in NSW.
The proposal was panned by the Invasive Species Council, whose chief executive Jack Gough wrote to Environment Minister Penny Sharpe and Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty.
'I am writing to urge you to reject the latest attempt by the NSW Shooters Party to undermine effective feral animal control in NSW,' Mr Gough said.
'This time through an attempt to secure government funding for bounties.
'Australia's long history of failed bounties has demonstrated they are expensive, ineffective and undermine genuine feral animal control programs.'
The council raised concerns that the scheme could be abused by way of fraud, and feral animal control was 'very different from ad hoc killing'.
While dismissing the plan, the council has lauded the successes of aerial culling into reducing the population of feral horses in the Snowy Mountains.
While significantly different in purpose, planning, and practice, the shooting of brumbies in the Kosciuszko National Park has been equally divisive.
A recent state government report found the population of brumbies in the park could be as low as 1500, down from 13,000 to 22,000 last year.
Mr Gough welcomed the report as a 'turning point', with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service releasing images of ecological recovery in the park.
Ms Hurst questioned the government's earlier numbers and suggested alternatives, like darting, were also available.
'The problem that we have is that there's always this messaging pushed out there that it has to be done urgently and it has to be done as quickly as possible,' she said.
'Of course what happens is when you kill a whole lot of animals in any one system they breed back up pretty quickly, so it's always going to be a Band-Aid solution.
'It is not going to work in the long term.'