Please for the good of NSW, its wildlife and national parks please do not allow any form of hunting in National Parks or the establishment of private game reserves. 

Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill

I oppose this legislation to allow hunting of native wildlife and hunting in national parks. Your environmental credentials will be permanently tainted by this Bill or any aspect of it that passes into law, as most citizens find recreational hunting of native animals and hunting in national parks repugnant.

The provisions of this Bill fail to control feral animals in national parks, but could help spread feral animals into new areas and establish new feral bird species. It cancels out the effect of existing animal welfare legislation and policy and will have adverse wildlife conservation outcomes. The legislation marks a radical change from the currently sound, professionally based national parks and wildlife management.

Private game reserves

The threat of invasive feral animal species would be exacerbated by the Bill allowing the establishment of private game reserves. Escape of feral animals is inevitable, as has occurred very commonly with deer from deer farms. Such reserves will provide a strong commercial incentive to increase populations of feral animals. The game reserves are opposed to community and existing government standards for animal welfare.

Release of new exotic birds

Release of exotic birds into private game reserves under the Bill would foster new feral animals populations in NSW. Some of the species proposed by the legislation have a high risk of establishment as pests and will become a very serious threat to the environment and/or agriculture. Escape of these birds from private game reserves is inevitable.

Permitting hunting of these new exotic species on public as well as private lands would also create an incentive for their release into the wild. The legislation undermines your government’s commitment to prevent invasion of new feral animal species.

Extending hunting to national parks and native species

I support the need for humane control of feral animals, but this cannot be achieved by the inexpert efforts of recreational hunters in state forests and national parks. Feral animal control requires strategic programs with well defined targets that can achieve identified environmental goals and are monitored for effectiveness.

The proposal to allow hunting in national parks for feral animal control just creates an incentive for hunters to release feral animals to improve hunting opportunities, as has occurred with feral deer and pigs in state forests and elsewhere. The provisions of the NSW government’s professional codes of practice and standard operating procedures for humane vertebrate pest control would be undermined in numerous ways by the passage of this legislation.