Safety Fears As Shooters Find Forests Fair Game

Sun Herald

Sunday July 30, 2006

By ALEX MITCHELL STATE POLITICAL EDITOR

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.

According to the NSW Game Council, 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 would-be shooters are queueing for special 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.

"Instead, the Government must put in place real programs to control ferals and keep our public bushlands as safe and peaceful places."

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

"Everybody who lives near, works in, enjoys or simply passes by a state forest will be at increased risk of being shot."

While Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald has become the champion of shooting in state forests on environmental grounds, former Shooters Party president David Leyonhjelm says a government-encouraged plan to cull feral animals is an important way to popularise gun ownership in NSW.

In a confidential shooters' paper obtained by The Sun-Herald, Mr Leyonhjelm said: "Many Australians identify with the need to prevent the devastating effects on native fauna caused by foxes, pigs and cats.

"With other methods either ineffective or environmentally dubious, and professional hunters unaffordable or not available, there is an opportunity to position recreational hunters as environmental saviours."

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said having shooters roaming state forests was "an accident waiting to happen".

"The hunter-stacked Game Council must realise that broadening hunting opportunities threatens not only animal but also human life."

© 2006 Sun Herald

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