lirralirra

The word pacific means peaceful in intent or character, calm, tranquil, non-violent. None of these words describe what has taken place on Victorian wetlands over the past eight weeks but they do describe the nature of our native ducks. The 2024 duck shooting season has finally finished, so this week I’m sharing three Pacific Black Duck photographs that I recently took of blackies in safer places.

One of my favourite photography opportunities is photographing birds as they contentedly preen themselves. Not only do I know they are comfortable with my presence but I also get to capture their plumage looking especially beautiful. In the photograph above I especially love the way the soft pastels of the background complement the duck’s ruffled feathers.

Pacific Black Ducks have iridescent feathers on their wings, called a speculum. These appear purple, blue or green depending on the way the light is reaching them. Their necks are incredibly supple.

I was watching this duck preen when it looked straight at me, somehow making me feel extra responsible for the carnage on the wetlands. I am absolutely devastated that the Victorian Labor Government choose to ignore the findings of their own Parliamentary Inquiry and permit a 2024 duck shooting season. Every day for the past eight weeks duck shooters were permitted to kill six ‘game’ birds. During this time the suffering on the wetlands is intense; birds are killed, injured and terrified. Official figures acknowledge a wounding rate of up to 30% which is why the work done by the Coalition Against Duck Shooting (and other) rescuers is so vital. Every year these wonderful people search the wetlands for birds that have been injured and left to die lingering deaths among the reeds. In the first few days of the shooting season, at one lake, the vets from Wildlife Victoria euthanised twenty-two birds that were too seriously injured to survive. Imagine the suffering across the many thousands of wetlands where shooters were firing shotguns in the general direction of flocks of native ducks.

This year the Game Management Authority have booked about twenty rescuers, including handcuffing at least two of them. These are rescuers, not shooters. It beggars belief.

I know many of you have written to politicians, or made a submission to the inquiry, and I thank you all, including everyone who cares about the sickening horrors of recreational native bird shooting. Hopefully it will soon be consigned to history, as it has been in other states, and our wetlands will be calm, tranquil and non-violent.

Happy birding, Kim

PS Hi Duck-lovin’ Kid, I hope this week’s post landed in time for you and that you like the blackie images.

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