IN DEFENCE OF DUCK HUNTERS’ EFFORTS

SWITCH OFF FROM SOCIAL MEDIA CESSPOOL

TO Catman (GA 21/4) and anyone else who is being persecuted and undermined by social media: keep off it!

They don’t hate you as a person; they don’t know you as a person and they don’t care. They just hate everyone who is successful.

If you don’t read it and don’t respond, they won’t get any satisfaction.

Just be happy to be famous in your own backyard — you don’t need worldwide acclaim to boost your ego.

These callous predators will always victimise anyone who promotes themselves on the web as they see it as an opportunity to bring you down.

If the locals like what you do, just be satisfied with that.

Name and address supplied

WHERE THERE’S A WING THERE’S A WAY

I WOULD like to thank Geelong’s own Trevor Pescott for many years of Addy columns regarding our local bird life.

I would also give thanks to you, Trevor, for your defence of our dwindling water birds against the evil duck shooting — er slaughter.

Sandra Gangemi, Bell Park

TREVOR Pescott from Belmont labelled my statement that duck hunters undertake commendable conservation work in wetlands “an old unproven claim made by shooters” and asked me for an explanation (GA 20/4).

I encourage Trevor and any other sceptics to take a trip down Barwon Heads Road and visit the Connewarre Wetlands Centre, where they provide a breeding ground for 230 bird species, of which only 7, or 3 per cent, are listed for hunting.

At the site, the Field and Game Geelong branch has built nesting boxes and henhouses, and introduced modelling of avian migration strategies, population dynamics and conservation strategies in conjunction with Deakin University for the benefit of the community and the birdlife using scientific research, not ideology.

These volunteers also provide valuable educational environmental experiences for schoolchildren, many of whom have never experienced wetland habitats and the species living in them.

Their nesting boxes provide homes for magnificent birds, including rainbow lorikeets, eastern rosellas, red-rumped parrots and many others, as well as the black swans nesting in the rehabilitated wetlands.

These efforts should be applauded by the community and government, as I called for in a recent parliamentary question to Minister D’Ambrosio.

The opponents of duck hunting rarely undertake any comparable conservation efforts and are often more preoccupied with virtue signalling than hands-on assistance to protect, manage and expand wetland birdlife and other species habitat.

Beverley McArthur, Western Victoria MP