Maybe I'm getting a weird perspective. Australia seems to be very pro-culling and anti-hunting.

In April there was an article in the local papers about culling of foxes and some "non-game" species. The numbers slaughtered were huge.

Last week there was an article about wild camels and how they need to cull nearly 600,000 to avoid destruction of desert ecosystems. Speculators were lined-up ready to make money off the slaughter; possibly one billion dollars according to them.

Why is culling perfectly alright to the average Australian, but hunting is not, or am I missing something here?

Culling is done by professionals and sounds scientific. It also sounds like work.

Hunting is done by blood thirsty hunters, who might actually ENJOY it. We can't allow that now, can we?

Bob

I think your onto something there Bob....

Yeah its not so cut-and-dried as all that. Some introduced species are a REAL problem, some are managed, some are even protected at different times and places ... and this varies from one area to another. Take goats for example - 10 years ago they were the scourge of the earth but now they are worth a lot of money graziers are rounding them up and selling them - hand over fist.

Even native species can be a pest.... kangaroos, wombats, etc.

You have all of these different pressures and interests pulling in different directions..... there are plenty of true hunters in Australia and plenty of people who wish to conserve and manage the populations of introduced animals.

quote:

Why is culling perfectly alright to the average Australian, but hunting is not, or am I missing something here?

Because they usually put the "Good for the Enviroment" tag on it. Like the camel cull, aparently they are destroying the fragile desert..HA..the desert is hard as bloody nails, and I like how they say that the camel, a soft footed animal that evolved in deserts, is doing damage while in the same areas cattle are run! Go figure?

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Originally posted by Bakes:

quote:

Why is culling perfectly alright to the average Australian, but hunting is not, or am I missing something here?

Because they usually put the "Good for the Enviroment" tag on it. Like the camel cull, aparently they are destroying the fragile desert..HA..the desert is hard as bloody nails, and I like how they say that the camel, a soft footed animal that evolved in deserts, is doing damage while in the same areas cattle are run! Go figure?

Bakes - you cant say negative things about farmers/graziers or you will be taken out back and shot.

Ferals are all bad and sheep and cattle are all good.....M'KAY??

You also aren't allowed to point out inconsistencies or anomolies in conventional thinking....

Bakes I would say you are spot-on. There is always someone that wants what they want, and they will use any justification to get it. It may be a government, or a strong industry lobby, or a real estate developer, or some other entity that values money more than the lives of wild animals.

The wild horse (think Nevada) and the wolf get the same treatment in the U.S. The people that squall and whine about them all have something to gain financially by elimenating them. What's not to understand. What gets me hot is their stupid attempts at justification, as if no one is smart enough to see through their song and dance.

Sorry Matt, I'll remember next time

Yeah, everyone always works for their own interest. Is this new? I do suspect there might be a shortage of sport hunters willing to go to the back of beyond to take a camel in a sporting manner.

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Originally posted by gbanger:
Yeah, everyone always works for their own interest. Is this new? I do suspect there might be a shortage of sport hunters willing to go to the back of beyond to take a camel in a sporting manner.

Doubt it...

Willing to take thousands? What has prevented them so far? If it is the same government that now wants to spend truck loads of money on a giant cull hunt, your politians are even stupider than ours.

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Originally posted by rugeruser:

quote:

Originally posted by gbanger:
Yeah, everyone always works for their own interest. Is this new? I do suspect there might be a shortage of sport hunters willing to go to the back of beyond to take a camel in a sporting manner.

Doubt it...

One problem over here is distance... even though Australia is roughly the same size as continental USA, we have I think about 22million compared to 300million, and our population densities and distributions are vastly different.

I've forgotten how to do it, but if you can get Google Earth to show you the night view of both continents, you'll get an idea of how much 'nothing' is in the middle compared to USA.

We also don't have anything the Mississippi River systems out west - it's pretty dry, and if not given due respect, can be very dangerous... and help is a loooong way away - it's pretty hostile country if you don't know what you're doing.

Getting sporting shooters out there wouldn't be too much of a hassle, but getting the meat to market would be a right royal PITA - no (or very few) refrigerated processing facilities, no sealed roads, and when and if it rains those roads are unnavigable...

Not saying it can't be done, but the logistics would be a nightmare, and probably not worth the effort of bringing the meat to market unless there was a major demand for it.

Crikey, can't even get the locals to eat roo meat... I can just see the average consumer's face when looking at a slab of camel meat in their local supermarket.... LOLOLOLOLOL

quote:

Originally posted by rugeruser:

quote:

Originally posted by rugeruser:

quote:

Originally posted by gbanger:
Yeah, everyone always works for their own interest. Is this new? I do suspect there might be a shortage of sport hunters willing to go to the back of beyond to take a camel in a sporting manner.

Doubt it...

One problem over here is distance... even though Australia is roughly the same size as continental USA, we have I think about 22million compared to 300million, and our population densities and distributions are vastly different.

I've forgotten how to do it, but if you can get Google Earth to show you the night view of both continents, you'll get an idea of how much 'nothing' is in the middle compared to USA.

We also don't have anything the Mississippi River systems out west - it's pretty dry, and if not given due respect, can be very dangerous... and help is a loooong way away - it's pretty hostile country if you don't know what you're doing.

Getting sporting shooters out there wouldn't be too much of a hassle, but getting the meat to market would be a right royal PITA - no (or very few) refrigerated processing facilities, no sealed roads, and when and if it rains those roads are unnavigable...

Not saying it can't be done, but the logistics would be a nightmare, and probably not worth the effort of bringing the meat to market unless there was a major demand for it.

Crikey, can't even get the locals to eat roo meat... I can just see the average consumer's face when looking at a slab of camel meat in their local supermarket.... LOLOLOLOLOL

To add to that, what has prevented culling is probably better left to others out here who know the details - however from my perspective, having been involved in large scale farming activities, there are at least two factors - animal libbers and sheer cost... animal libbers we all know about, so I won't go there.

Cost - camels inhabit some vast areas of ground - even our indigenous population can only provide relatively incomplete info as to where they may be at any given time.

Aerial tracking and shooting might well be the most practical and cost effective way of controlling a species that causes a fair bit of damage to our very fragile ecosystem. Caught a glimpse on TV of a woman on stateside program wailing about aerial bombardment or whatever... and claiming that camels are good for weed control.... yeah right - they also eat anything else out there, and endanger the food sources for our native wildlife.

Last I heard, we are actually exporting camels back to the middle east...

Having said all that, I reckon that if any of you fellas are interested in helping control the camel population, it might be a good opportunity to let our 'stupid pollies' know that they are potentially missing out on taking advantage of an opportunity to inject money into our economy.

Matt Graham (one of us) http://www.HuntAust.com.au might be better placed to comment in that regard.

I have not intended to be a pain in anyone's ass. Sorry if some took it that way. As I understood the point of this thread, some were opposed to culling instead of allowing sport hunters to control camel and donkey numbers. I think you just confirmed the impracticality of expecting hunters to be able to handle it.

Not a pain in anyone arse at all gbanger...

Sport hunters could indeed handle quite a lot of it (actual culling) - if given the opportunity but there are several govt departments, psuedo govt departments and aboriginal land trusts that stand in the way in different respects in the three states that are involved.

Some of the camels are logistically and geographically out of reach for sport hunters too but we arent really even given the opportunity to try to get them.

and YES... our govt is equally as stupid as yours!!

Another cull in The West Australian today. This time it's foxes. Supposedly 400 fox were culled / trapped in the Perth metropolitan area this year. The intent being to protect native marisupials, ducks, swans and tortoises; and rats I guess that have been plaguing the suburbs this year.

So not to offend anyone, or capture the highly valued bandicoot, the traps are modified, and rubber padded so the fox is "injured as little as possible" before they kill it.

I've always felt the other way about wildlife. If you were allowed to hunt game outside the metrolpolitan areas game might tend to move towards the less populated areas.

If you culled every croc within 100 kilometers of Darwin, where would the other crocs tend to go...back to the area where the croc population had been wiped-out, less competition.

As a hunter, I hate any cull. Men playing God.

Once hunting is gone for good we'll be covered up with native marisupials, and I guess governments will begin culling them. At that point we'll have to decide whether to save the swan, the duck, the bandicoot, or the tortoise. I'm sure there won't be room for all of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
Another cull in The West Australian today. This time it's foxes. Supposedly 400 fox were culled / trapped in the Perth metropolitan area this year. The intent being to protect native marisupials, ducks, swans and tortoises; and rats I guess that have been plaguing the suburbs this year.

Australia had a reasonably effective method of controlling foxes in the past. Winter spotlighting of foxes for fur coat pelt sales.

The idiot greenie morons killed off the industry by reducing demand for fox fur sales.

Wearing Aussie fox fur coats is GREEN and environmentally positive!

It's a shame. Australia should and could be such a cool, interesting hunting destination. Not so now.

Cull-crazy Australians at it again. In today's Subiaco Post they now want to cull cockatoos.

The Department of Conservation and Land Management say they are not native to WA, but are from the Eastern States. They breed rapidly having two to four chicks a year, and have no natural predator. (See culling of foxes above.) They pose a threat to native WA birds and compete with ducks and owls for nests. "Mr. Mawson from (CALM) said culling of the corella (cockatoos) was the only way to keep the population under control."

"CALM has trapped, cannon-netted, shot, and drugged them." To me they seem to have a natural predator; man.

Just my personal observation. Tourists here don't give a rats-ass to look at a duck or a owl if the cockatoos are around.

CALM appears to be brain-dead. They are native to Australia, in fact three of six species in the world are almost solely from Australia, but they are not native to WA and therefore must be culled. I guess that is similar to Louisiana claiming the whitetail deer is not native, but come from Texas and therefore must be culled.

CALM is trying to play God, and doing a poor job of it.

Okay, just an off the wall perspective here.

It seems to me, that Austrailia, has in many ways had a similar history to the U.S. and Texas.

The problem seems to be that like the U.S. and Texas, many Aussies rammed their thumbs up their asses, and allowed the "Greenies" to take over, to the point that common sense game management and firearms ownership and use has been taken away from the common person.

Not meaning to be a Horse's Ass, but the U.S. really needs to take a long hard look at what has happened to Austrailia and realize that we are going to end up in the exact same situation if we do not make an effort to fight the folks that want to take hunting and gun ownership from us.

Hell, I can help those poor Aussies out, I'm in for a cockatoo hunt. Are they good to eat?

The weirdos and extreme greenies just get upset because someone is [u]enjoying[/u] hunting or culling. That is why they prefer extremely expensive and often unproductive gov't culling. Because the "professionals" do it as "work" not for sporting enjoyment.

They are driven by negativeness because of their often sorry little lives.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
It's a shame. Australia should and could be such a cool, interesting hunting destination. Not so now.

Huh? Why?

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
It's a shame. Australia should and could be such a cool, interesting hunting destination. Not so now.

Huh??? It still is a cool and interesting hunting place.

Stunning scenery that also has great variety from outback to rugged ranges, reasonable accessible and good variety of game, access to state forests (in NSW with an appropriate licence)..

So much game, so little time...

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Originally posted by rugeruser:

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
It's a shame. Australia should and could be such a cool, interesting hunting destination. Not so now.

Huh??? It still is a cool and interesting hunting place.

Stunning scenery that also has great variety from outback to rugged ranges, reasonable accessible and good variety of game, access to state forests (in NSW with an appropriate licence)..

So much game, so little time...

And far more hunting opportunities per Aussie hunter by far than the USA.

It shows having a little information can be dangerous.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:

quote:

Originally posted by rugeruser:

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
It's a shame. Australia should and could be such a cool, interesting hunting destination. Not so now.

Huh??? It still is a cool and interesting hunting place.

Stunning scenery that also has great variety from outback to rugged ranges, reasonable accessible and good variety of game, access to state forests (in NSW with an appropriate licence)..

So much game, so little time...

And far more hunting opportunities per Aussie hunter by far than the USA.

It shows having a little information can be dangerous.

NitroX,

Dunno mate..

obviously I can't speak for Kensco, but I reckon hunting has improved dramatically over the last 40 or so years...

On that basis, I can't speak for WA... but geee.... my young bloke has downed more variety of game in the last 6 or so years than I did in the previous 40... none of it on paid properties... and nearly all within a 10 hour drive from Sydney... most within six, some have been less than 3 hours. All this in an area bounded by an ellipse from say Gympie, out to west of Wanaaring, down to the ACT and then to the coast...

Let alone easy access to guides, improved transport and so on...

And as you say, all available to someone who's prepared to ask the right way.

Kensco, why the jaded view?