The Duck Defenders

On the eve of a duck rescue action at Moulting Lagoon (6 March 2021, the opening day of the 2021 duck season), Tasmanian Times interviewed three activists. Pictured above: Chris Simcox (Animals Tasmania), Jenny Thomasworth and Ivan Davis (both Animal Justice Party).

Chris Simcox
I’m Chris Simcox, spokesperson for Animals Tasmania. We’ve been campaigning on the issue of duck shooting or opposition to duck shooting, we prefer to call it duck rescue because we’re actually out there trying to save ducks being shot, and help them if they are shot and wounded and left by the shooters. So for us, the issue with duck shooting is not so much the outright killing of the duck, though obviously, we’re quite opposed to that. But it’s more to do with the fact that many ducks are wounded in the process, not claimed by shooters, and left to die a slow death. Without question, we want to see an end to duck shooting in Tasmania,

Tasmanian Times
Do you think the general public is aware of what goes on during a duck shoot?

Chris Simcox
I think the general public on the whole would sort of tend to be a little naive as to what actually happens. When you describe it to somebody, just what actually goes on on the wetlands during a duck shooting season a lot of people are quite horrified. When you tell them, you know, a duck will be shot, and it’ll be flapping around on the water for quite some time as the shooter casually strides out of his hide. Or he sends a dog out to pick up a duck that’s still alive, then it’s coming back towards the shooter with a duck flapping around its mouth. When you when you tell people those sorts of stories, I think they’re quite horrified to hear that, so I think on the whole, most people are a bit naive and unaware of what actually does go on.

Tasmanian Times
How many ducks are you likely to able to rescue? And what are the prospects for them?

Chris Simcox
Well, unfortunately, in our experience in the history will tell us that very few ducks can be found still alive. The difficulty is that ducks that are injured or wounded, will be very good at evading capture, they’ll they’ll dive under the water, they’ll seek cover, and the area we were talking about is very large body of water. So in order to cover that we’d have to have probably hundreds of rescuers out there, combing the shoreline in search of ducks and the risk in doing so is you you send up healthy ducks into the air that can then be shot. You’ve got to sort of balance that out at the end of the day. But the reality is now we don’t find too many wounded ducks, because they’re difficult to find.

Tasmanian Times
How many people are you expecting to have out this weekend?

Chris Simcox
Look, we’re hoping for good numbers. We don’t know for certain, we’ve got people that are in it for the first time, they’re a little bit unsure as to whether they want to be out there with the with the shooting going on, with the violence that’s occurring. We certainly hope to get a good turnout. We’ve had 50 plus people out there at times. We can’t say for certain that we’ll get those sorts of numbers this year, but we hope to have those sorts of numbers.

Tasmanian Times
In the past have you experienced any hostility from the hunters themselves?

Chris Simcox
For the most part that I’d say that the shooters are quite respectful of what we do. And we will return that level of respect as much as we can. Obviously we have a disagreement in terms of our philosophies. There has been a little bit of hostility in recent years with rescuers being threatened with violence, rescuers having guns shot over their heads, damage to equipment in camps and things like that. The feeling is that the shooters are getting more hostile in in the sense that the shooters that are remaining there are perhaps a little more hardcore in their need to hang on to the tradition. I think a lot of the less hardcore components have already given it away.

Tasmanian Times
The government could have taken advantage of the COVID break to put an end to duck shooting in Tasmania. Why do you think they didn’t do that?

Chris Simcox
I think it’s because the duck shooters, and those allied with duck shooting, which a lot of the farming communities are, are a fairly vocal minority, and they certainly are a minority, but they have interests within the Game Management Liaison Committee, which is the advisory body on duck shooting that advises the government. And I think they tend to have a fairly loud if minor voice. And so the government is sort of keen to provide them with what they see as a tradition. We would argue it’s a tradition that should be relegated to the history books; it’s a tradition along the lines of slavery, that is no longer relevant to the current day and age

Tasmanian Times
I understand there are some other jurisdictions in Australia which have banned duck hunting totally.

Chris Simcox
Yes, you’re correct. It started with Western Australia, I think it was in 1990. I think it was followed by Queensland in 1995. And New South Wales in 2000, I believe, correct me if I’m wrong on that, but those are the three states that have brought in a ban on recreational duck shooting. It was never allowed in the ACT. Yes, it’s a bit strange it’s still allowed in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Tasmanian Times
What you can learn from those states about lobbying to end duck hunting?

Chris Simcox
Well, I think what happened in those other states was he did have a largely sympathetic government at the time. So that is a great help. We haven’t had that we working on that aspect. We get the sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel, we can expect some sort of change. We’re certainly hopeful in the near term; the RSPCA has been quite outspoken against duck shooting this year, and The Greens have certainly speaking quite loudly against it again this year. So I think we are getting a sense from those sorts of organisations and political groups. And the Animal Justice Party obviously has been always opposed to duck shooting so we get the sense that its days are numbered.

Jenny Thomasworth
Jenny Thomasworth, I’m the Convenor of the Animal Justice Party in Tasmania.

Tasmanian Times
Chris was just speaking about the political situation. As a political party how are you going to apply the leverage to get the changes you want to see?

Jenny Thomasworth
Well, the best way, of course, is to get elected. We are standing as many candidates as we can. And we do hope to see at least one person elected in the next year or so. Even if we do not get elected, and we get a very good primary vote, that does give us some amount of leverage to put pressure on the existing government of the day to adopt some of our policies. And of course, one is an end to recreational duck hunting.

Tasmanian Times
I understand you’re standing a candidate for the Legislative Council seat of Derwent. Can you tell us a bit about that campaign?

Jenny Thomasworth
Our candidate Ivan Davis has been campaigning in his electorate of Derwent probably since November last year. So he’s taken a very long game on that one, put in a lot of hard yards doing awareness raising events, such as market stalls initially. He’s now doing door knocking and going around and actually talking to the people of the electorate finding out what their issues are, telling them what the AJP platform is, what he stands for and how effective we can be once we are elected. He even did an Iron Man style triathlon for the animals in January and raised a lot of funds and awareness for the cause.

Tasmanian Times
What are the animal welfare and rights issues that you see as relevant to that electorate?

Jenny Thomasworth
I think there are a lot of wildlife sanctuaries that are in need of support and assistance. Our MP in Victoria Andy Meddick has just recently got a million dollars for the carers and wildlife sanctuaries in Victoria.

Ivan Davis
The basis of what the Animal Justice Party is about applies to Derwent like it does to almost every state and in the country. Here we are talking specifically about duck hunting. And I think there’s three main aspects about the duck hunting: one is the political aspect, the shooters’ aspects and the ducks’ aspects. And we’re here to try to represent the ducks’ aspects because they’re not getting represented on the political field adequately. Obviously, the shooters are part of the problem. But I would make the point, though, that the shooters don’t deliberately go out to be cruel, but the cruelty is inherent within the practice of duck hunting, by virtue of the way shotguns work. For every duck that’s killed, there are several ducks that get wounded and die slowly, over hours, days, weeks.

Tasmanian Times
I read the advice of the Secretary of DPIPWE to the Minister, advice that recommended a duck season go ahead. His reasoning was largely based on the numbers. Why do you think cruelty and suffering is not taken into account?

Ivan Davis
I think that’s a really good question. I think it’s because there’s no political impetus to do so, and why that isn’t I’m not sure. Except that it seems incredible to me that the violence, the inherent cruelty, the pain and the suffering, that’s part of duck shooting…if you were to just turn that around a little bit, we could not possibly sanction that, we could not possibly allow that in other sections of our society. But for some obtuse reason – well we know the reason it’s because we’ve been doing it for 100 years or so. But that doesn’t excuse it, does it?

Tasmanian Times
Tasmanians are generally proud of our unique wildlife, like the Tasmanian devil these days, but the remarkable thylacine was hunted to extinction. Why do you think we haven’t learned from that and still allow people to get permits to shoot wildlife?

Jenny Thomasworth
That’s an excellent question. It’s one I ask myself quite frequently. I don’t think we pay enough to the rights of non-human animals. Once we are in parliament they will have a voice through us. And then by having a voice then of course the awareness of these issues and the things facing these animals is much more visible. Until that happens I think we just have to be as vocal as possible and speak up for them. Thank you.

TASMANIAN TIMES: Duck Season Declared.

TASMANIAN TIMES: ‘Make this year’s Duck Hunting Season the Last’.

CHIEF EDITOR: Oh Deer.