Shooting Greenies
Some people like shooting. We call them shooters. And some people like saving the environment. We call them greenies. So when somebody likes shooting and saving the environment at the same time then perhaps we should call them “shooting greenies”. Or perhaps “green shooters”.
The Game Council has overseen the creation of over a hundred new “conservation hunting” reserves on public land in the past two years.
The NSW Government announced another 92 new hunting zones in the Riverina on Friday.
The idea is to regulate hunting by allowing enthusiasts to target non-native “pest” species such as pigs, goats, deer and wild dogs.
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Feral cats make great sport.
Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon: “Controlling pests should be part of a wildlife management plan, not a recreational pursuit.”
This immediately reminded me of a quote by Leela from Futurama: “I’m sorry, but if it’s fun in any way it’s not environmentalism.”
Does MLC Rhiannon want people to stop recreationally controlling European Carp as well? What a dill.
This century in Latvia, when the Green Party was in government they teamed up with the Farmer’s Party and had policies that included encouraging foreigners to come Latvia to kill native wildlife for sport.
Of course, the preservation of the forest and therefore native species was underlying this cash inflow venture.
The blocking of Scandinavian plantation timber companies from entering the Australian market during the 1990s is an example of protectionism destroying native forests. Green politics can be the natural way for any free market thinkers that still have not been rounded up and put out to pasture by the recent interventions.
Great post parkos. Its a bit unnerving the thought of environmentalists carrying firearms. But then again all of us have our human rights regardless of our opinions.
Juvenile to the end.
Please explain? Why is it wrong to control feral animals recreationally? The reality is this is how most of it is done, and with restocking of natives like Trout Cod and biological controls like calici per se, it has been remarkably effective considering the plague proportions of Carp and Rabbits in the 1970s and 1950s respectively.
The NSW Game Council costs taxpayers something like $5 million a year. It is supposed to be self-funding but not enough shooters have taken out the licences that allow them to shoot in state forests. I’m one of them.
The idea of using shooters to donate their time and resources to help control feral animals on public land is admirable. Volunteerism, seen in organisations such as the Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service, saves taxes and promotes civil society.
The risk in all such cases is bureaucratic overkill. That’s the problem with the Game Council.
In Victoria, shooters who hold a game licence (not difficult to obtain) are at liberty to shoot ferals (pigs, goats, foxes and rabbits, plus deer in most cases) in most state forests and national parks.
Not so NSW. There is no hunting in NSW National Parks at all (the Department is totally omnipotent) while getting a licence to hunt in state forests involves a complex test. Then to actually go hunting it is necessary to book the specific forest on specific days, wear orange clothing and carry certain documents. It’s all too hard.
The Game Council’s main expenditure is on field officers, originally employed to promote hunting but now turned into “compliance officers” to enforce the multitude of regulations governing such hunting. A further dozen or so volunteer “compliance officers” are being appointed too.
As you might expect, shooters are not big on complying with a bureaucrat’s idea of what’s permissible.
The real agenda is to protect deer hunting from those who don’t share elite attitudes towards its European derived and largely unwritten rules. Deer hunters, who look down on common pig shooters, control the Game Council.
One of the benefits that may come out of a change of government in NSW at the next state election will be a revamp of the Game Council and neutering of the National Parks service. With a budget deficit in prospect, all that compliance crap should go too and hunters might then become a bit more enthusiastic about volunteering.
So why is NSW more punitive than Victoria? What is the history behind the differences?
I also thought there were a lot more deer in Victoria…
Labor in NSW is/has been more beholden to the Greens than in Victoria. Bob Carr was also a bit of greenie himself, although he was sympathetic to the idea of hunters helping to control ferals.
Hunters in Victoria were considerably more organised than in NSW. Field and Game Australia, for example, has saved wetlands on condition that duck hunting be retained. Since 1995 hunters in NSW tended to put their faith in the Shooters Party. As history shows, that was a big mistake.
I don’t think anyone’s seriously attempted to count deer anywhere, but there is no general perception of more in Victoria than NSW.
If you do have to shoot a greenie, aim only to disarm them. I recomment shooting the biggest wing, their left wings, so they are forced to seek balance by using their right wings.
Er, that’d be “diswing” them wouldn’t it?
Diswing or datwing, so long as you only wound them. If you kill them, they smell worse than their policies. Or so I have heard (I am not a hunter myself, though I do hope to bring down a few Leviathans if I get the chance.)