Safety Fears As Shooters Comb Forests

Sun Herald

Sunday July 30, 2006

By ALEX MITCHELL

GAME hunters are now able to shoot in 142 state forests across NSW and they've already bagged 650 feral animals since legalised hunting began in March.

The NSW Game Council says licensed hunters have culled wild deer, goats, foxes and pigs since the State Government threw open 1.4 million hectares of state forest to recreational shooting.

While shooters are queueing for licences to help eradicate feral animals from publicly owned forests, environmental groups and the Greens are calling for the program to be halted on safety grounds.

National Parks Association of NSW executive officer Andrew Cox said: "Shooting a few foxes and pigs for fun is not how you protect our threatened species from ferals."

Lis Shelley of the Keep Forests Safe coalition said: "Recreational users of state forests are expected to share the forest with armed amateurs."

Former Shooters Party president David Leyonhjelm believes the government-encouraged plan to cull feral animals will popularise gun ownership in NSW.

In a confidential shooters' paper obtained by The Sun-Herald, he said: "Many Australians identify with the need to prevent the devastating effects on native fauna caused by foxes, pigs and cats . . . there is an opportunity to position recreational hunters as environmental saviours."

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said it was "an accident waiting to happen".

© 2006 Sun Herald

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