Victoria: Independent Review of the Wildlife Act 1975

The independent review of the Wildlife Act 1975 was commissioned following the poisoning of hundreds of protected wedge-tail eagles in East Gippsland in 2018. The review was led by an expert panel and investigated Victoria’s Wildlife Act which had not been updated in half a century. Despite the panel delivering its final report in December 2021, the Victorian Labor Government had not responded to the report until it published its response, Victorian Government response to the Wildlife Act Review, on 17 October 2025.

In Victoria, the Victorian Government enables the killing of around 1 million plus ‘protected’ Australian animals, targeting around 100 Australian species, particularly mammal and bird species through a series of mechanisms including:

• Recreation;
• Commercial gain;
• Wildlife killing bounties;
• 'Damage’ mitigation (ATCWs);
• Aggressive killing regimes of native animals in National Parks;
• Unprotection of protected species;
• Secretive mass killing events such as Koalas.
• The use of poisons, including 1080 and Pindone, is widespread and indiscriminate, including its extensive use in National Parks and Ramsar Sites, particularly impacting reptile species and carnivorous mammal species (including scavengers) and birdlife, particularly raptors.  The number of animals impacted is unknown.

So what impact in reducing the mass killing of Victoria’s Australian wildlife does the Victorian Government’s October 2025 response to the independent review have?

• Recreational shooting of birdlife continues;
• Killing wildlife for commercial gain continues;
• Wildlife killing bounties have recently been introduced;
• Use of ATCWs continues;
• Aggressive killing regimes of native animals in National Parks continues;
• Indiscriminate use of poisons continues; and
• Unprotection continues; and no doubt there will be more secretive killing episodes to come.

So the answer is no impact at all where it matters, the 1 million plus cruelly killed protected Australian animals will remain just that, 1 million plus cruelly killed protected Australian animals, fiddling around the edges won’t fix a thing.

In its October 2025  response Victorian Government response to the Wildlife Act Review document the Victorian Government state:

“Support for sick and injured wildlife: Since 2023, the Victorian Government has committed $9.51 million to fund projects to support sick and injured wildlife and the people that care for them. This included through our annual Wildlife Rehabilitator Grants, expanding Zoos Victoria’s Outreach Program, which aims to improve the knowledge and skills of veterinary staff who care for wildlife across the state, funding the Wildlife Victoria Hotline and support for the Wildlife Emergency Support Network”.

We will request a detailed breakdown and publish that when it is provided.

I also asked the RSPCA in Victoria to comment further on the release of the Victorian Government’s response, particularly the likelihood that when it comes to reducing the extremely cruel, including trapping, decapitation and bludgeoning to death of wildlife in Victoria, nothing of significance was going to change. Their response was as follows:

“Unfortunately, we don't have anyone available for interview, however you can use quotes from our media release issued on Friday regarding the report and government response”.

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Notes on the review

Our recommendations to the panel were:

The need for overarching principles underpinning the Act which substantially strengthen and tighten; protection measures; compliance monitoring and enforcement, transparency in decision making including public participation and rights of appeal; habitat protection and removal of government discretion in implementation and decision making.

• That all wildlife protection be incorporated in a single piece of legislation including the provisions governing compliance monitoring and enforcement and penalties for acts of cruelty.
• The protection role needs to be removed from DELWP and a new independent authority created which has sole responsibility for wildlife.
• The current provision to “unprotect” species to be abolished.
• Provisions to be introduced to give rights of appeal to people impacted by the Authority to Control Wildlife permit system prior to any action occurring.
• The definition of “pest” only be considered if it can be supported by independent scientific evidence. It remains extraordinary that keystone Australian species can be declared as pests so as to further facilitate their unmonitored destruction.
• A major overhaul of the ATCW scheme to substantially tighten rules and conditions around the issuing of permits. Lethal control must be abolished.
• Killing of wildlife for commercial gain to be prohibited.
• Public participation and consultation protocols mandated for government decisions and policies around wildlife management.
• Penalties for wildlife cruelty to be toughened.
• Wildlife injured in fires: the blocking of rescue attempts by DELWP and others should not be allowed and the Wildlife Act needs to address this issue.
• Formal recognition of wildlife rescuers and carers as an essential community service. Transparency in relation to information regarding wildlife matters including information and data relating to ATCWs issued, commercial exploitation of wildlife activities and government wildlife killing programs and wildlife experiments on private and public lands including state and national parks in Victoria.

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State of play

Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions and a new wave of endangerment of Australian species is occurring because of climate change (for which, the impacts on wildlife are obvious). Endangerment is facilitated by government conduct, which has become increasingly aggressive in allowing the killing of wildlife and current attitudes, many of which have been created by marketing and various other campaigns, which aim to persecute numerous Australian species.

The Victorian Government claims that all wildlife in Victoria is protected. However, in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Each year the Victorian Government promotes and enables the killing of hundreds of thousands of native animals. The killing of native Australian wildlife is now so entrenched, and the sense of entitlement of governments promoting this behaviour and the individuals carrying it out, mean poor standards are applied to matters relating to animal welfare and biodiversity.

One of the main reasons for the failure of the 1975 Act to protect wildlife was the lack of clear governing principles and definitions by which the provisions of the Act were written. There remains an urgent need for radically improved protection mechanisms of wildlife. Overarching principles are paramount as they guide the specific provisions in the Act.

In their submission to the Review and subsequent discussions with the review panel, Peter Hylands and Ian Slattery (on behalf of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council), stated that the Act should incorporate the following principles.

To recognise wildlife as sentient (not as property). Requiring a paradigm shift in attitudes and approach away from “How do we manage/control wildlife” to “How human behaviour needs to change to harmoniously co-exist with wildlife”.

• How to co-exist with wildlife without interfering with it.
• The need to recognise the importance of wildlife (and its protection) to ecosystems, biodiversity and the environment.
• The need to engender respect for and pride in Australia’s native species through education and proper standards of governance.
• Recognition of the importance of habitat to the protection of wildlife and to address the increase in habitat destruction.
• The primary purpose of the Act should be to protect wildlife. However protection is not clearly defined. A clear definition of “protection” needs to be established.

We asserted that protection (of wildlife) means:

• To safeguard (keep safe) and protect from harm (i.e. human intervention);
• To ensure sustainability of species;
• To preserve habitat and prevent its destruction; and
• To recognise the importance of wildlife to the ecosystems in which they live and to the environment generally.

The prejudicial nature of Victorian Government conduct in relation to the lack of duty of care for wildlife, poor standards compliance monitoring, a complete lack of just process for complainants in matters of the destruction of, and cruelty to wildlife, is causing serious harm to the people who care about wildlife. This harm results in depression and anxiety, the forcing of residents from their properties and businesses, that is an economic cost, all resulting from lack of a just process for people attempting to protect their properties and livelihoods, the wildlife they know so well, for what is now growing cohort of Victorian residents. Wildlife carers and the owners of wildlife properties in the state are particular subject to abuse and significant levels of suffering. The Victorian Government knows this but continues. Government issued wildlife permits have become levers of abuse, also leading to threats to wildlife carers in the state.

The combined result of all the above is catastrophic. Labor in Victoria have escalated or allowed the assault on Victoria’s wildlife, for example, near doubling the number of ATCWs when compared to the previous Liberal government, a trade in wildlife has been introduced for Macropods, duck shooting continues despite environmental conditions and rescues of wildlife have been blocked from national parks and other public lands. Despite the vast scale bushfires, the killing of wildlife continued at scale.

• In Victoria in the ten-year period 2009-2018 inclusive a total of 32,147 ATCWs were issued for Australian species covering 1,513,605 animals.
• In Victoria, the total number of animals subject to ATCWs in the period 2016-2018 was 2.3 times higher than the number of animals subject to ATCWs 2009-2011.
• The number of ATCWs (permits) issued in 2016-2018 was 1.66 times higher than the number of ATCWs issued in the period 2009-2011.Victoria is also not the place to be if you happen to be a bird, 73 per cent of species subject to control in Victoria were bird species with a total of 397,549 birds, of which 182,721 or 45 per cent were from a range of Parrot species. We also need to remember that ATCWs are not the only way animals in Victoria die, so we can add another 4 million dead water birds (we are being modest in our calculations) in the last ten years to the tally in Victoria because of duck shooting in the state. So all up, that is around 4.5 million birds in the state in the last ten years.
• Politics and nature: The Victorian Labor Government was elected in November 2014 and has increased the number of animals killed across a range of mechanisms. The Labor tally in relation to ATCWs in the years 2015 – 2018 totals 16,010 ATCW permits covering 844,625 animals. In the previous four-year period the Liberal- National Coalition Government in Victoria issued 11,146 ATCW permits covering 461,593 animals, 54 per cent of the Labor total.