Rocky Creek Wildlife Refuge

A Possum Photostory.

This was my first attempt at creating a Photo Story with some still photos. This is Sandy Possum only a couple of days after her release.possie-in-a-box

URGENT! Write letter to Stop Shooting in New South Wales National Parks

This Bill may be debated in Upper House as early as tomorrow – Thursday 18 June 2009

This is a Private Members Bill, so it goes thru Legislative Council.

Since sending my bulletin below, we have been informed that deals are being done between the NSW Government and the Shooters Party.

One possibility is: no hunting of native animals in National Parks approved, but shooting of non-native animals will be allowed.

The other possibility: no hunting in National Parks at all, but hunting of all animals (native and non-native) on private land will be allowed.

I would like to stress that when writing your letters (as per my bulletin below) you request that NO deals should be done and that the entire Bill is rejected (no exemptions!)

Please act now!

-for the animals and for the sanity

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The Tranquillity of National Parks to be Shot to Pieces – Thousands of animals will endure horrendous, prolonged, painful deaths – dying slowly of wounds inflicted by bullets. There is also a risk that innocent people might be shot or injured…

Dear all

Please act urgently against this madness.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill was introduced into the NSW Upper House by Shooters Party MP Robert Brown last week. If passed it would open the state’s national parks and reserves to recreational hunters who could be licensed to shoot native animals and birds. Among the birds and animals that could be hunted are the Australian wood duck, grey teal ducks, galahs, corellas, eastern grey, western grey and red kangaroos. This Amendment Bill reintroduces duck hunting back into NSW. Some of the ducks are quite rare ones, the pink eared duck, whistling duck, the chestnut teal and they’re even allowed to shoot black swans.

Opening up state forests to shooters in 2006 (under the guise of saving native wildlife) was bad enough.  Now National Parks the last bastions of safety where animals can still live out their lives in peace are being targeted by “recreational” shooters who have now our native animals in their sight.

For more information please see Greens media releases on the issue.

http://lee.greens.org.au/index.php/content/view/2939/50/

Attached is also a press release by the National Coalition for Gun Control.

Below couple of links of articles in the press about the Bill:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/greens-oppose-recreational-hunting-in-national-parks-20090611-c508.html

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200906/s2596443.htm

Please contact

1) Premier of NSW

Nathan Rees

postal address:

GPO Box 5341, Sydney NSW 2001

email via his website:

http://www.premier.nsw.gov.au/Talk_to_The_Premier.html

tel : (02) 9228 5239

fax: (02) 92283935

2) Minister for Climate Change and the Environment

Address	Ms Carmel Tebbutt, Level 30, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, SYDNEY NSW 2000
Phone	(02) 9228 4866
Fax	(02) 9228 4855
Email	dp.office@tebbutt.minister.nsw.gov.au

and express your strongest opposition to this insane Bill.

There are many points you might wish to make.

”On average, 560 Australians are hospitalised every year as a result of injuries from firearms and the hunting rifle which is the most common type of firearm used in both accidental and self-inflicted injuries.

Violence breeds violence! Researchers at Monash University have suggested that legal violence such as hunting can spill over into illegal violence and there is evidence of a relationship between hunting and illegal aggression. Statistics serve as a warning of the real dangers of a so-called sport that could, in different ways, have tragic consequences.

This Bill has nothing to do with saving environment, and everything to do with wooing the gun lobby. The concept is based on either culpable ignorance or a deliberate refusal to look at the findings of a NSW Parliamentary enquiry into feral animals which has shown that hunting has little if any impact on feral animal numbers.

The enquiry also revealed that hunters re-introduce wild pigs into areas from where they have been removed to ensure their continuing availability for hunting. The wild dog problem can be directly attributed to hunters as most commonly wild dogs are animals who have been lost or abandoned by hunters or are the offspring of these animals. In Tasmania, the presence of foxes has been attributed to game hunters.

Claims that we may trust game hunters not to kill endangered species or to act responsibly and humanely in killing any animal must be open to question given this record. No training can ensure that those who find pleasure in killing will strictly adhere to required processes when they are in remote areas alone or with a group of fellow hunters. In fact this Bill has the provision making it an offence for the public to approach hunters shooting in declared areas!

But even with the best will in the world, mistakes can happen and National Parks are particularly dangerous places to be when shooting is occurring as there is no clear line of sight and bullets may ricochet.

As shooting animals is not popular with the community, the shooters are dressing it up as “conservation hunting” and that hey are “serving” the public. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Game Council in NSW receives more then 2 mln dollars per year in tax payer money, so they are payed about $290 dollars per every single “feral” animal they kill.

It is disturbing that scarce environmental resources are being devoted to this ill conceived program.  Actual outcomes will be still more disturbing – for many animals, a horrendous death, torn apart by hunting dogs or dying slowly of wounds. For our community as a whole – increased danger when travelling in or near National Parks (apparently in NSW there are about 10 thousands licenced hunters, and Game Council claims they can have a pool of 134 thousands!)

And for our environment?  Accelerated degradation of habitat caused by four wheel drives, and, inevitably, declining populations of our endangered and supposedly “protected” species.

Please act!

– for the animals and for the sanity

Miss Possie