This footage shows shocking cruelty to a sentient native waterbird by a duck shooter on the opening morning of the 2021 duck shooting season at Lake Lonsdale, near the regional town of Stawell. https://youtu.be/CAa1-7awR4Y
The Coalition Against Duck Shooting Campaign Director Laurie Levy said today: "Duck shooting is all about violence and cruelty to Australia's beautiful native waterbirds. Yet to my knowledge, there has never been a single prosecution against a duck shooter for a cruelty offence under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. In other words, duck shooters have always been protected by those in power from cruelty prosecutions.
"The Game Management Authority has been given a copy of the footage to investigate. However, footage of previous cruelty incidents that have been handed to the GMA have never resulted in a prosecution for alleged cruelty offences in Victoria.
"Duck shooting is a dying activity that is all about animal abuse. We are hoping this footage will lead to the first prosecution of a duck shooter for allegedly serious and extreme acts of cruelty under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act," Levy said.
"The problem is that the GMA is the sole regulator that can prosecute duck shooters under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, but it has a serious conflict of interest as it is also the manager that advocates and promotes duck shooting in Victoria.
"In fact, the independent Pegasus Report in 2017 recommended that the GMA's role as a regulator should be handed over to a larger, more broadly-based body because of this conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the RSPCA, that once protected all animals great and small, is not allowed to prosecute duck shooters for cruelty offences," Levy added.
"The Victorian Labor Government now recognises animals as sentient beings that feel happiness, pain, fear and suffering, yet it presently turns a blind-eye to the shocking violence that duck shooters inflict on Australia's native waterbirds," Levy said.
View video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CAa1-7awR4Y
(Higher resolution footage available here: https://vimeo.com/555010740 - password: Lonsdale21).
