Anyone catch the interview on 4 corners? I caught part of it on a repeat last night. I thought Robert did a good job.

Yeah not to bad I thought considering that he was always going to be up against it trying to get his point across. Its difficult to explain to anyone who doesnt hunt. Mind you the reporting was very second rate i think. Not like the old 4 corners I remember. Ive never been a Kerry Obrien fan either. His closing statement was typical of him I thought. Cheap.

Yes I thought it was as well.

Yeah, the hunters were chuffed to get their point across but but the antis' retorts and the KO waspishness left a feeling we were pipped.

The success of hunting Victorian and NZ national parks for many years could have been teased out more by our blokes, I think, but maybe their comments were edited excessively.

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quote:

JOHN MUMFORD:We have very tight controls to monitor who goes onto public land. Ah, it's only our R licensed hunters. We limit one hunter per 400 hectares .

I have hunted on vast area of private pastural land[250,000 ha, or 50km x 50km] where I was the only legally permitted rifle hunter.
[a typical small private hunting party is permissible].

If that area of private wilderness were a national park, then according to Game Council ratios of '1 hunter per 400 ha',
..that in theory, would amount to a maximum of 625 permit holding shooters on 250,000ha area of land.

I would not want to be anywhere on [or near] an 250K ha area of land with even a fraction of that many shooters.
Nor would I allow any such numbers/ratio of shooters on to any area of land be it private, stateforrest or national park.

quote:

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Game Council says it can remove the rogue element through training and education. And the R license guarantees responsible hunting.

JOHN MUMFORD: We have very tight controls to monitor who goes onto public land. Ah, it's only our R licensed hunters. We limit one hunter per 400 hectares. And we get quite a lot of data from hunters when they go on there, so if anyone misbehaves in a state forest we can actually track that person down very, very quickly.

MATTHEW CARNEY: To get an R license you have to be a member of an approved hunting club and a licensed gun owner. It's an open book test and shooting skills are not assessed.

MATTHEW CARNEY: You don't test for gun proficiency or marksmanship do you?

JOHN MUMFORD: No we don't.

It seems to me that the GC priority is to please hunters out of political priority/expediency,
by approving as many R licences as practically possible, without any proper reliable assessment of the applicants marksmanship & firearms safety skills.


The owner[family man] of that large private property I hunted, was immensely cautious of arriving hunters gun handling & safety skills.
My discussions with him indicated that he likes to give licenced hunters the benefit of the doubt, but in the many times he has,
a disappointingly high proportion demonstrated poor gun handling and firearm safety/awareness skills.
[infact down-right stupid and dangerous]
That feedback comes from a person who earns an income from guiding legal hunters, so is not in any way against hunting,
but is based purely on his direct dealings/exposure to legally armed hunters from all parts of the continent.
His mind was much more at ease with bow hunters.


And I would like to know why the Game Council, has since distanced itself from the individuals still involved in the illegal hunt allegations,
- concerning GC volunteer Edward Hoogenboom and former GC acting chief executive,Greg McFarland.

Edward Hoogenboom in interview since, said he is opposed to the idea of allowing shooters into national parks.

Greg McFarlands legal council[Mr King-Christopher] has lodged an application to the Industrial Relations Commission on behalf of Mr McFarland,
claiming his client had been unfairly treated by the NSW Game Council.

BY all means allegations of illegal hunts by GC staff need to be properly investigated, however,
Someone needs to remind the GC that police charges do not necessarily amount to actual convictions, and a person is by law, innocent until proven otherwise.
So why has the GC not stood by their man? ... I would say they have prematurely abandoned him out of political expediency.

1 per 400ha is a MAXIMUM and not all of them are rifle hunters - you have bow and doggers too. He wasnt only talking about NP estate either. In reality we all know that in only rare cases will the density be approaching that - certain forests during deer season.

quote:

Originally posted by Trax:
I have hunted on vast area of private pastural land[250,000 ha, or 50km x 50km] where I was the only legally permitted rifle hunter.
[a typical small private hunting party is permissible].

If that area of private wilderness were a national park, then according to Game Council ratios of '1 hunter per 400 ha',
..that in theory, would amount to a maximum of 625 permit holding shooters on 250,000ha area of land.

I would not want to be anywhere on [or near] an 250K ha area of land with even a fraction of that many shooters.

You're making the assumption that the numbers of hunters allowed in state forests is at 100% and that is wrong to do that. There's only a couple of forests in the state that regularly have the maximum numbers allowed, actually hunting that forest.

With the current numbers of R licenced hunters, there will never be a situation where many forests reach maximum capacity, nor will any of the Nat Parks when they are opened.

I have hunted Maragle South on numerous occasions when it was at max capacity for hunters and never saw another person for the 4 days I've been there.
I'm sure many of our US and UK friends would love a hunter population density of one per 400ha (1000acres).

People with large private tracts of land are typically nervous with even just a few shooters on their land at any one time.
- and we all know why.
Hence, I could not imagine any sensible owner/custodian of land being comfortable having anywhere near the hunter/shooter concentration figures like the GC suggests.

However, IF any of you know of a large private land owner, regularly allowing bus load numbers of hunters onto his land,
cause he thinks its a good idea, please tell the hunters here who that land owner is - and thats only on largely restricted private land.

Which is without the additional liability/responsibility/concern of having
the greater non-hunting public use of the same public land [& numerous neighbouring property owner concerns]...... that the Gov. & NationalParks must consider.

IF someone allowed me onto an area of land to hunt[250k ha] and told me that there were 100 other hunters on there at the same time,
[& sometimes many times that figure]......I would consider that at best a sad joke, regardless of whether it was public or private land.

I seriously doubt any of you here would allow anywhere near the numbers of hunters the GC proposes, if it were your own land.

quote:

I have hunted Maragle South on numerous occasions when it was at max capacity for hunters and never saw another person for the 4 days I've been there.
I'm sure many of our US and UK friends would love a hunter population density of one per 400ha (1000acres).

and I have hunted State forrests numerous times where the forestry commission office guy, upon [hesistantly]issuing the permit, drew on the topographic map where we could go,
telling us we were the only permit hunters in the [rather large area] at the time.
I still regularly heard gun shots going off in the forrest,... and even came across[spooked] a guy sitting under a tree with his rifle.
Having a whole heap more hunters in my large aloted area would not have made the situations any better.

ON one occasion we had really pissed off neighbouring land owners pass our vehicle on the forrest road and cut us off, forcing us to stop.
They got out and approached our vehicle us with [lowered]guns in there hands, angrily demanded to see our permits.
I guess they would have been in whole heap of trouble had I reported them to the police,
BUt I cooly accesssed the situation and kind of understood their state of ongoing frustration.

Stick the boot into organised public land access why don't you?... hell you might as well write some letters to OFarrell as another disgruuntled hunter who doesnt agree with (relatively) open access on NSW public lands.

Given the amount of hunters in Victoria - I guess we should be expecting accidental shooting there every other week too (sarcasm alert).

Your arguments simply dont stack up annd are not supported by data.

MG,

you rely on exclusive access agreements to use other peoples vast tracts of land to make your living,
and you and the land owners/custodians keep the hunter numbers highly restricted-rather low.

Why not do an agreement with them where you lower the price & allow bus loads numbers of hunters on those vast lands to hunt the large number of ferals.
More hunters in the field doing what they enjoy most, ..at much more affordable price, all while protecting the ecology,
.. sounds more fair and great for all hunters, the economy,environment and landscape, alike.

Large concentrations of hunters on public land hunting ferals is supposedly a good/fair idea,... but not on your exclusive-privately arranged large area concessions, correct?

Private land owners typically dont let bus load numbers of ametuer hunters onto their large lands, and for good reason,
often hard learnt by repeated painful experiences with exposure to only a[relatively] low number of hunters.

Yet you think Gov. bodies should ignore those real world facts & issues , simply cause 'the data dont support it'.
Maybe find yourself a political career , its seems you have the credentials.

And I repeat: I seriously doubt any of you here would allow anywhere near the numbers of hunters the GC proposes, if it were your own land.
And if anyone here were to deny that, I would laugh in their face.

quote:

Originally posted by Matt Graham:
Stick the boot into organised public land access why don't you?...

I dont have a problem with organised hunting on public land.
I do have an issue with the way the GC is going about it and the scope they propose.

When people obtain power & leverage in politics, they become more focused on maintaining their power than anything else. them being fearful of losing it, will typically adopt political expediency over down to earth commonsense and reason.

LIke bananas, political figures often start off straight and green...and mostly all end up bent and yellow.

THe GC wanting to offer widespread hunting on publics lands is a ploy no different
to when politicians propose welfare increases, which appeal to certain parts of the voter base,
which helps them maintain their political power base, nothing more,nothing less.

First the GC was 'up in arms' about the illegal hunt allegations surrounding its staff & workers,
confidently assuring the public that there no such thing taking place.
...Next thing,..they unfairly turn about and abandon the Snr staff member out of pure political expediency.
The GC heads don't know whether they are coming or going, foolishly making rash statements & decisions at both ends.
I really dont like fck*ng idiots like that representing the shooting sports.

GC are also issuing R licences admitting that there is no actual practical proficiency and markmanship testing, before letting those hunters onto public lands across NSW.
..yet they expect the general public & gov. bodies to have confidence in them that the proposed shooting on public lands is strictly monitored and will be mostly trouble free.
Issuing R liscences in the way they currently are, is yet another example of political expediency
- to simply extract as many votes as possible votes from the shooting fratenity, nothing more nothing,nothing less.

Trax, do you hold an R licence? What state do you live in? I'm just trying to get some idea of the position you're coming from.

Not having the data close by me I am sticking my neck out here. It would be interesting to know some of the hunter concentrations that exist in the U.S on government land when opening day of the elk/deer season occurs in the western states. Especially when you have professional guiding services operating on the same land as unguided individuals (or parties). Im sure that the concentrations would appear high but each seems to be reasonably successful. I am willing to be corrected if Im wrong though

quote:

Originally posted by johnfox:
Trax, do you hold an R licence? What state do you live in? I'm just trying to get some idea of the position you're coming from.

John - he is coming from a bent-over position, with words coming out his arse.