Give Victorian ducks a safe, sustainable future

Below are some suggested comments from our waterbird experts about recreational native bird hunting in Victoria.

Recreational hunting adds an unnecessary pressure to declining duck populations.

• Just as droughts are known to cause population declines for waterbirds, we know that we need prolonged wet conditions to simply maintain waterbird population sizes as they are.
• In order to recover waterbird populations to healthy pre-1980 levels, breeding and recruitment conditions for waterbirds need to not only be good enough to maintain the population at its current size, but to grow the population. Successive quality breeding seasons are needed for population recovery.
• Long-term monitoring across Eastern Australia shows that duck species populations have not yet recovered after previous repeated years of drought and low rainfall.
• While the last few seasons have been wet in some areas, the bounce back of waterbird populations has not been sufficient to restore populations to healthy sizes. Several more good seasons are needed to recover population loss inflicted from periods of severe drought. Sadly, much of Victoria has been in drought so far in 2025.
• “Game” species still show the shadow of long-term declines on average.
• The model that the Game Management Authority assumes 20% of overall game duck population can be harvested, but the GMA are yet to publish the report that underpinned their decision in 2025. This means that waterbird experts are in the dark as to the sustainability of the models and assumptions used to justify an expanded 2025 hunting season.
• The adaptive model underpinning decisions around hunting seasons in Victoria were being tested while the Inquiry found recreational hunting should be ended in Victoria.
  • From the Inquiry (page 71):

    "The Committee also highlights that although wetland area has increased in the past decade due to wetter conditions, there has not been a relative increase in bird populations. In the Committee’s view the key limitation of the model is that is does not account for the population decline of a species in setting harvest numbers. The model does not provide a cutoff point or baseline to stop hunting to allow a species to recover from an ongoing downward trend."

Recreational hunting can have negative direct and indirect impacts on threatened and non-game species.

• Plains-wanderers, a critically endangered species, could be killed during the quail hunting season as they look superficially similar and are found in the same habitat.
• With drought conditions in much of south-eastern Australia's wetlands, especially Victoria's west, conditions are poorer for breeding. A reduction in wetlands available increases the likelihood of a larger concentration of waterbirds in a smaller number of wetlands, increasing the risks of sensitive species interacting with game hunters.
• Higher densities of birds increase the risks of sensitive species contracting diseases like Avian Influenza, and intensify the impacts of hunting and disturbance on threatened species.
• Notable threatened or non-game species at risk include: Australasian Bittern, Australian Painted Snipe, Brolga, Great and Intermediate Egrets, Australasian Shovelers, Blue-billed, Freckled, and Musk Ducks. Hardheads have been re-added to the permitted game list in 2025.
• Even if these non-target birds are not directly shot, the disturbance to them in their habitat can have drastic and detrimental effects.
• Migratory shorebirds feed in wetlands, with adults fuelling up for their departure for the northern hemisphere in late March and April, meaning opening the hunting season will disturb and risk threatened species preparing for long migrations - including recently uplisted Common Greenshank, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Latham's Snipe. Furthermore, many adolescent shorebirds remain in Australia throughout the year.