Support has dwindled for the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009, introduced by the NSW Shooters Party. If passed, hunters would be allowed to go into national parks and kill native animals including black swans, sulphur crested cockatoos and kangaroos.

The RSPCA believes the Bill is archaic and flies in the face of the progress made in recent years to improve humaneness in wildlife and pest animal management.

This Bill opens up national parks for recreational hunting, allows hunting of native species, and expands lists of ‘game' species thereby creating incentives for the release and spread of pest animals into new areas.

If this Bill is adopted it will:

• considerably worsen the pest animal problem in NSW
• set the State back many years in terms of improving the humaneness and effectiveness of pest animal control
• permit both native and pest animals to be deliberately reared, confined, released and shot purely for ‘fun', ‘canned hunting style
• allow the shooting of kangaroos without reference to the national code of practice for humane shooting or state quotas for kangaroo harvesting
• allow native birds and kangaroos to be shot in national parks
• make it an offence to approach a recreational hunter in a national park

The RSPCA will keep a close eye on the situation to ensure the Bill isn't revived.

• Read the RSPCA's full media release