With a state election looming, the threat of animal activists to the future of hunting in our state, should not be understated.
Animal welfare activism
Even if you have no interest in hunting, animal activists are playing the political game, and proving to be effective.
The aim of animal activist campaigns – be it by Animals Australia, PETA or Animal Liberation – is to generate funding for their organisations, and stop all forms of hunting.
The consequences of this would be significant. It would lead to the disbanding of wetlands established by hunters, leading to more weeds, pests and loss of habitat.
It would see the community lose important environmental public assets. It would kill jobs in many regional areas and importantly, do nothing to improve animal welfare or conservation.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
In Animal Welfare: Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing, author Robert Herrmann drew attention to the Victorian Government’s recent release of Victoria’s first ever “Animal Welfare Action Plan”.
He explains the intention of the plan is to recognise “the sentience of animals, reflecting strong evidence that animals experience sensations such as pleasure, comfort, fear and pain”.
That’s not about animal welfare but putting an end to things we currently take for granted – hunting, fishing and logging.
Importantly, the action plan commits the government to ‘reviewing codes of practice relating to hunting’. You can guess what that means.
The government has also established a new body called Animal Welfare Victoria. The stated intention of the body is to bring together all aspects of domestic animal and animal welfare research, policy, education and compliance.
While there are positive aspects into genuine animal welfare, many of you will know the animal welfare agenda we are seeing at a political level is run by zealots who simply want to shut hunting down, rather than do something positive for the environment.
The fight to end hunting is on
If you are a hunter and think that the future of duck, deer and other forms of hunting will be safe after this year’s Victorian state election, then you only need to have one look at the the Animal Justice Party’s website to see what it will push for. It’s first policy on native birds is “to immediately ban duck and quail shooting.”
The Greens have the same policy – plus an extensive page and petition on their website dedicated to achieving that outcome.
You don’t have to be Einstein to see what could happen to hunting if either or both parties end up with the ‘balance of power’. That’s why they have to be stopped.
How we can work together on this
The CFCV will be leading the fight to make sure that whatever government we get, that it supports the shooting sports, and will leave hunting alone.
To do that, we’ll be running an election campaign to support candidates who support sports like hunting, and end the careers of those who do not. This will include the release of “How To Vote” information for Victorian shooters like yourself, and your family and friends, in key seats.
We’ll also help you through the voting process including how to update your electoral details if you have moved, where you can ‘vote early’, and understanding which ballot paper is which (one for the upper house and one for the lower house) and how to complete them.
If this sounds good, then click here to join our email list to get updates as we head towards the election. You can opt out at anytime.
You can also donate to our election fighting fund via GoFund me by clicking here, or via Paypal by clicking here. That way you can contribute directly to the shooting industry’s campaign – all for the price of just one box of ammo! (… and a huge thank you to the many supporters who have already donated!)
A note to pro-shooting parties
Our message to pro-shooting parties contesting this year’s election is to put the Animal Justice Party and Greens last wherever you are providing How-To-Vote information.
Any other allocation of preferences will work against the interests of Victorian shooters.
The aim of PETA includes
Step 1 – Hunting bans
Step 2 If no hunting is allowed then no need for firearms.
Step 3 – Back door prohibition of all privately owned guns.
Step 4 – The aim of having total control of society by a Socialist/Communist regime where only the police and military have firearms.
In some way both Labor and Liberals are heading down this path. The Greens are fairly blatant about what they want and that is a socialist state headed up by the Greens
It’s time for all shooting and hunting groups to forget their differences and band together. This is the fight of their lives and yet they still go against each other even though they have the exact same interests. How can this be? SSAA, Field and Game etc…..need to join forces and form a supergroup that will be huge and be able to nullify all the anti rabble have to throw at us. Please, for the sake of all shooters, hunters, farmers, and firearm collectors…please join as one to end this menace of the anti gun / anti hunting rabble. The time is now!
Serious question: What’s the difference between hunting and fishing?
Ask anyone that question, daily. Its a good conversation starter, and I’ve lost track of the number of non-vegans who might be more sensibly ‘middle’ (ie.don’t care) now after I’ve explained my choice of lifestyle. Which is to feed my family with the best of nature’s freerange bounty – small scale natural harvest which is completely sustainable.
For me, I respect vegans/veges for their convictions, everyone is entitled to an opinion and a free choice. Hunters and fisherman are no different, so I ask the antis to please respect my choice. Whether or not they a capable of that is a discussion for another day…
So happy to see an advert by field and game last night on TV. Unfortunately l wasn’t paying attention to the TV but l think the ad was promoting a conservation based political party. I will be watching out for it to see exactly what it was about, and for me the best thing was it didnt mention shooting or guns; yes l’m a gun person but we must realise the majority of people out there that actually decide our sports future via who they vote for either hate guns or at the least dont see a reason anyone should want or have one, by not pushing the gun agenda and appealing to their inner leanings re saving animals F&G could influence these voters to vote for our sport.
The aim of most of these groups is not just to end hunting, but to stop the use of animals for anything including pets. They tend to be silent about assistance animals, however I believe that their policies would say “no” to them also.
To go ‘biblical’, hunting is the head of their “camel” but the body is no use of animals for anything.
Stop them now or be prepared to go ‘vegan’!
There are several problems confronting us here. For one, as Anthony Calleja quite rightly states, we are fractured as a group of gun owners. Different disciplines look after their own & ignore others. I for instance am a muzzle-loader user, I back other disciplines but they DO NOT back muzzleloaders!!!
Animal activists have some good points, especially when it comes to shooters shooting for sport & killing more than they need! It should NOT be left to the animal activists to police this, that SHOULD be our job! Yobbo shooters spoil it for everyone & we need to get on top of this.
Keith.
I agree with Anthony Calleja and Keith Burgess, and I have also said it before, until we combine our resources and become one voice such the USA have in their NRA then we are and will remain easy fodder for gun hating political parties to score brownie points with the electorate each time they get up with the media and twist the truth, right now they have us licked with the NFA and their insistence that its up each state to implement it, “DIVIDE AND CONQUER” the USA has different laws in each of its states just like we do but they only have one NRA, we do a good job in each of our states IE: CFCV in Vic, shooters union in QLD (don’t know what NSW has) but as others have said until we stop our squabbling and infighting and unsupportive of others shooting interest’s be it Target, Hunting, Black Powder, collecting, whatever and remain “DIVIDED” then the government of the day and its bleating minor support parties, will continue to “CONQUER”, we must have our own version of the NRA……it seems to work well in the USA !!
I agree with Anthony Calleja and Keith Burgess we need to have a united front and a national united front at that, right now with the government of the day saying its up to the states to implement the NFA they have us divided “DIVIDE AND CONQUER”, the USA also has different laws in each state but they have only one powerful NRA to deal with laws at a national level, here we have many much smaller organizations which are doing their best for each state, Vic has CFCV, QLD has the shooters union, (not sure what NSW has), but until we combine our efforts nationally and stop the infighting between all the shooting organizations and be unsupportive of each other’s disciplines, be it, Target, Hunting, collecting, Black Powder or what ever then the gov’t has us licked “DIVIDED” and while we are, and they have all their minor support parties bleating about the tools of our sport then they will continue to “CONQUER”, if we are to survive in our chosen sport not just for ourselves but for our next generation then we must show a united front at a national level such as the USA has with the NRA. All our different organization have to come together on this post haste.