Media release – BirdLife Tasmania, 24 June 2022
Indefensible native wildlife culling is ‘business as usual’ practice in Tasmania
The latest release of wildlife culled in Tasmania under Property Protection Permits (formerly Crop Protection Permits) shows indefensible levels of native wildlife being culled each year.
Figures released under Right to Information (RTI) show culls of 25 species of native wildlife exceed 2.7 million animals over 3 years.
“The cull of native Tasmanian birds, detailed in this RTI defies belief – the numbers are truly staggering”, Dr Eric Woehler OAM, Convenor of BirdLife Tasmania said today.
More than 5000 black swans, 1800 Cape Barren geese, 340 green rosellas, more than 2500 native hens, 560 silvereyes, more than 12,000 sulphur-crested sockatoos and almost 3000 wood ducks have been culled in Tasmania since 2019.
BirdLife Tasmania supports the call from the Tasmanian Greens for an independent inquiry of all aspects of wildlife management in Tasmania, including but not limited to property protection permits, which are now issued for 5 years.
These totals are on top of the waterfowl shot in Tasmania during the duck season each year, when at least another 50,000 birds are shot.
“The Tasmanian public were outraged in 2019 when a similar RTI showed that platypus had been culled under these permits, and again last year when golf courses obtained permits to cull Tasmanian native hens.”
“Non-destructive, non-lethal methods must be prioritised, and culling must be the last resort for wildlife management in Tasmania” Dr Woehler said. “The business as usual approach of issuing 5-year permits to cull wildlife is as indefensible as is the numbers of wildlife culled. These are convenience culls of our native wildlife.”
“How can the Tasmanian Government make their ‘clean-green’ claims when this level of native wildlife culling is occurring every day of the year?” Dr Woehler asked.
Featured image above: Cape Barren goose mother and chick, courtesy of and copyright Eric J Woehler 2022.
Debra
July 14, 2022 at 14:52
Don’t they get it? They are killing one of our biggest tourist attractions – which makes me so wild that they are doing this to these beautiful, defenceless creatures.
It seems that they won’t be happy until Tasmania is devoid of wildlife and we are living in a environment where we will never hear birds sing, or be able to show our children or grandchildren beautiful wildlife living in its natural environment. Will we have to go to zoos, or worse still, only be able to view wildlife in books?
We live in this unique State of Tasmania, so why don’t we recognise that and do something about preserving it for our future?