Birdlife and death and people suffer too
Life in the air
DONATE
YOU CAN SUPPORT CREATIVE COWBOY FILMS BY DONATING
Your support will assist us to continue our research and content development, the greater our resources, the more we can do.
The more we have an accurate understanding of what is happening to nature, the more we can all do to protect what remains of our living planet.
This is also an opportunity for philanthropists to be part of an ongoing project that tells independent stories about the natural world, stories that will help us to better understand what is happening to species and places on our precious planet Earth.
Note: Creative Cowboy Films does NOT have tax deductible charity status.
Become a Member
Becoming a member of Creative cowboy films The Nature Knowledge Channel is a very real way you can help the precious natural world and support the work we do in creating knowledge about what is happening to it.
Membership
You can access thiscontent and other stories by becoming a member or donating
Sign up NowBecoming a member of Creative cowboy films
The Nature Knowledge Channel is a very real way you can help the precious natural world and support the work we do in creating knowledge about the natural world.
Annual membership of the Creative cowboy films - Nature Knowledge Channel gives you full access to content, stories and films, available on this website. Becoming a member of the Creative cowboy films - Nature Knowledge Channel is a very real way you can help the natural world and support our work in creating a greater understanding about what is happening to it.
A point of difference
Creative cowboy films is independent, is not funded by governments or industry, and is not influenced by their associated interest groups. For reasons of independent research and content development, Creative cowboy films does NOT have tax deductible charity status.
"The Ramsar Convention encourages member countries to nominate sites containing representative, rare or unique wetlands, or that are important for conserving biological diversity, to the List of Wetlands of International Importance".
The world’s Ramsar sites are immensely precious places. Duck shooting in the Australian State of Victoria accounts for the agonising death of a vast number of waterbirds each year. In 2011, 600,000 birds were slaughtered on Victoria’s wetlands including in numerous Ramsar sites. This remains an annual event, even as bid populations dwindle.
Image above: Laurie Levy being interviewed by TV crew.
In the sound file below Peter Hylands describes the state of a Ramsar site in the Kerang wetland system.
Wounding and suffering
The wounding rate for this birdlife is estimated to be between 18 and 35 per cent, so adding a further 108,000 to 210,000 to the total for the 2011 season.
The period prior to this in the Australian State of Victoria was equally shocking, by 2009 and over the previous 25 years, duck numbers in Victoria had declined by 75 per cent.
Impact on people
Laurie Levy reflects on how duck shooting has a severe and traumatising impact on the people that witness the event. The scale of the killing can be particularly traumatising. These are dangerous places.
"The main difference between duck shooters and duck rescuers is one of empathy. When a native waterbird is flying over a shooter and is hit by shotgun pellets, the shooter and those in his party will often cheer as the bird, still alive, spirals out of the sky towards the water.
Rescuers, on the other hand, who have empathy for the victims, are often traumatised by the sheer brutality shooters inflict on these defenceless and beautiful native waterbirds. The only reason volunteer rescuers are on the wetlands is to help as many wounded birds as they can and to recover illegally shot protected and threatened species for evidence".
"It is difficult for sensitive people to force themselves to witness the shocking violence that results in cruelty, pain and suffering that these birds are forced to endure, just so duck shooters can enjoy their so called recreational activity.
Rescuers are sensitive people who are only on the wetlands to help ease the suffering of wounded birds by taking the victims to our mobile veterinary clinic for treatment.
On the opening morning of the 2017 duck shooting season, the shooting was so intense that rescuers recovered 150 wounded birds that were taken to our mobile veterinary clinic.
We were told that some Parks Victoria staff who were on duty that day to issue fines to rescuers who were in the water before 10am, were so traumatised that they told their managers they would refuse to attend another duck shooting opening weekend.
A couple of weeks later, new and experienced rescuers had been so traumatised by the opening morning’s massacre, they needed to attend a special debriefing session held by a NSW trauma councillor, who paid his own way from Sydney to offer his services".
"As at 2022, the slaughter of birdlife in the Australian State of Victoria still continued".
Let us all hope that the killing finally stops in 2023.
