{"id":960,"date":"2012-07-14T09:50:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T23:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=960"},"modified":"2012-07-16T09:52:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T23:52:42","slug":"veterinarian-support-for-ofarrells-national-park-hunting-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=960","title":{"rendered":"Veterinarian support for O’Farrell’s national park hunting plan"},"content":{"rendered":"The President of the AVA\u2019s Conservation group, Geoff Dutton, has offered support for NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell’s decision to allow hunting in 79 of the state’s national parks, provided animal welfare is being carefully considered and a strict licensing system is imposed.<\/span>\r\n\r\nUnder the changes, licensed shooters can apply to hunt feral animals including pigs, dogs, cats, goats and deer.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cI am sure that the premier has considered this move after consultation with many groups. Within the AVA as within the wider community, there are diverse opinions on the moral aspects of hunting,\u201d he said.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cThe AVA\u2019s prime concern as should be for any veterinarian is for the welfare of the animals being hunted. I would therefore assume that the premier is taking this into consideration as this would be the main issue of concern.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nDutton said the AVA supports the development of population management systems that reduce the necessity of hunting, but acknowledges there are instances in which there is a need to use firearms to cull feral animals.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cCulling of feral animals in areas is essential as many are destructive to the environment and compete for valuable resources that native animals need,\u201d he said.<\/span>\r\n\r\nHe added that culling by firearms can be done by Parks personnel, but they are often understaffed and have a number of other duties, making it difficult for them to carry out effective control measures.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cAnother way is to use contract workers for the task but this costs a lot and funds are often not available,\u201d he said.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cThe other method is to allow licensed recreational hunters and under strict control hunt certain \u2018feral\u2019 species within an area. Therefore, if correctly carried out this may be a viable method of culling feral animals if there is no other alternative.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nDutton said licenses should be introduced for specific areas and target animals after consultation with Parks staff and carers with quotas aligned with management plans.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cA fair share of the funds should then be returned to the Parks for them to continue any restoration within the park and where necessary provide facilities for other users of the parks.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nPremier O’Farrell said culling of feral animals by professional shooters has already occurred in national parks across the state.<\/span>\r\n\r\nHunters will require permission and need to be licenced by the NSW Game Council.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe Premier said access conditions will be decided by Environment Minister Robyn Parker.\r\nSAM WORRAD<\/strong> <\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President of the AVA\u2019s Conservation group, Geoff Dutton, has offered support for NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell’s decision to allow hunting in 79 of the state’s national parks, provided animal welfare is being carefully considered and a strict licensing system is imposed. Under the changes, licensed shooters can apply to hunt feral animals including pigs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[578,760,765,767,766,515,764,282,762,122,761,768,280,763],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ava","tag-barry-ofarrell","tag-comment","tag-conservation","tag-geoff-dutton","tag-government","tag-hunters","tag-hunting","tag-national-park","tag-nsw","tag-park","tag-robyn-parker","tag-sam-worrad","tag-state-forest"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":398,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":398,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"The President of the AVA\u2019s Conservation group, Geoff Dutton, has offered support for NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell’s decision to allow hunting in 79 of the state’s national parks, provided animal welfare is being carefully considered and a strict licensing system is imposed. Under the changes, licensed shooters can apply to hunt feral animals including pigs, dogs, cats, goats and deer...","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"578":{"name":"AVA","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=ava"},"760":{"name":"Barry O'Farrell","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=barry-ofarrell"},"765":{"name":"comment","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=comment"},"767":{"name":"conservation","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=conservation"},"766":{"name":"Geoff Dutton","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=geoff-dutton"},"515":{"name":"government","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=government"},"764":{"name":"hunters","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=hunters"},"282":{"name":"hunting","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=hunting"},"762":{"name":"national park","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=national-park"},"122":{"name":"NSW","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=nsw"},"761":{"name":"park","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=park"},"768":{"name":"Robyn Parker","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=robyn-parker"},"280":{"name":"Sam Worrad","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=sam-worrad"},"763":{"name":"state forest","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=state-forest"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}