Lack of rain turns season into a fizzer

NT Field and Game

THE 2019 waterfowl hunting season turned out to be a relative fizzer.

The pre-season hype had left us all optimistic with 1.48 million geese and a thankful return to reasonable bag limit figures of seven geese and 10 ducks over nearly 16 weeks.

Thankfully the Minister maintained the season into January allowing hunting families to enjoy time together when the birds finally did arrive.

We were confronted with the driest wet season since 1992 and the birds did not arrive into the hunting reserves until early December. We didn’t have the water to accommodate them and they chose to stay put in wetlands inaccessible to the permit holding hunters of the NT.

This had a similar result in 2011. The continent experienced the wettest year since 1956, our bag limit was increased and I thought it was going to be on for young and old. But the geese changed the game. They had at least two clutches that year and the late second breeding kept them on the nest with flightless young until the end of November.

Managing geese is like herding cats. It is pointless.

Dr Robyn Delaney recognised this many years ago and suspended aerial goose counts.

Seasons were set at 17 weeks for 14 consecutive years with bag limits of seven to 10 geese and ducks. The population did not suffer.

The lack of water in reserves shows the hunting economy is vulnerable.

This Government needs to honour the motion by Kezia Purick last September, supported by the entire Parliament, to provide more hunting reserves with reliable water levels. Another off river water storage along the Adelaide River might be an answer.

NT Field and Game is holding clay target practice at the Mickett Creek Shooting Complex range, Brandt Rd, Knuckey Lagoon this morning from 9am till noon. Normal practice will resume next Friday from 4pm and a 50 target Simulated Field competition will be held next Sunday from 8am.