Uhunt Mag Information

• Posted By : BRISTLE UP
• Posted On : Jul 08, 2019
• Views : 2156
• Likes : 1
• Category : PIG DOGGING » ARTICLES, TIPS & HOW TO GUIDES
• Description : "Poachers, our biggest enemies. Is regulation the key?"

Overview

• By Ned Makim
  
  Pig hunting with dogs tends to function on the basis of thousands of individuals, independently heading in the same direction. We are all about training the dogs, removing the pigs from the environment and getting access to land. By nature, pig hunters are focused on the immediate needs of the lifestyle, on the next hunt and all that goes into it. However, that can blind us all to the longer term and where we will be hunting in 5,10 or 20 years’ time. Central to the future of pig hunting as individuals and as a culture in Australia is access to land. We have to have somewhere to go legally if we are to live our lifestyle, practice our culture, access free-range meat or simply remove a serious environmental and agricultural pest. We have to be welcomed somewhere. In Australia, there is no ‘free land.’ All land is owned by someone. It is either privately owned or public land. Both require express permission to enter to hunt. If you don’t have permission from the owner, manager or the relevant government agency you are poaching, hunting illegally and risking our credibility as a group for your own short-term gain. So if poachers are the enemy of future access, who are our allies? We have three. Private landholders (farmers, graziers, miners and so on), Politicians and the bureaucrats who work in and run government departments. By now some of you will think I’ve gone mad. The private landholders as allies link are obvious. Every pig hunter wants access to private land. It’s an absolute gift and forms one of the biggest topics of conversation next to ‘what dog breed is best’. We all understand absolutely how important a solid relationship with private landholders is to hunting access. The Politician and bureaucrat link might be a bit more difficult to see. What will be even less obvious is the link between regulated pig hunting and the future of pig hunting in Australia? 
  
  
  
  Our lifestyle is under constant threat from people who will pursue their own animal rights agenda at the expense of animal welfare and sound animal management. They never stop. Ultimately, we are only a pit stop on their way to an end to ‘animal slavery.’ Having pets is slavery to these people. Using animals to do a job is slavery. Raising animals to eat is murder. On their own, these people can achieve nothing, so they sell their agenda one fluffy bunny at a time to middle Australia. No one likes cruelty to animals, so they tell people we are cruel and enjoy hurting animals. Individually we can all say that isn’t true, however, without banding together and having allies, our voice is drowned out. In the 1990s pig hunting with dogs was banned in NSW. Most active pig hunters now, don’t know that. It was banned at the stroke of a pen and that was that. That was until a few hunters won the support of the NSW Farmers Federation who argued on our behalf that we were necessary to rural industry. Farmers were and remain, political, and they carry weight. The ban lasted for the blink of an eye in political terms, and we were back on track. We owe the farming community for way more than access to land. So where do politicians and bureaucrats fit in for us? A politician’s first job is to get elected. Even if they are the most honest, effective person you could imagine, they can’t achieve much if they aren’t in Parliament be that Territory, State or Federal. They must win the vote. That makes them great counters. They can add up votes and potential votes in a split second. Their second job is to stay elected. They have to stay in the job to achieve whatever it is they plan to achieve. If you are trying to turn around a big, heavy thing like government policy you have to allow a lot of time and space. 
  
  
  
  Both these jobs require numbers. They need votes, and they need measurable results. Bureaucrats are in a different position. They aren’t elected, but they still run on numbers. They need time in their jobs to get ahead. They need the support of people in their own and other departments, and they need measurable results. Measurable results are most usually in terms of money for both of these allies of ours. And both allies need a means to count that money as more comes in or less goes out. Take NSW for instance. NSW hunters won access to hunt on public land through Shooters Party MP John Tingle. He was the one vote the Labor Government of the time needed to do various things it wanted to do. He used that powerful position to successfully argue for responsible, licensed and measurable hunters to reduce the cost of pest control on some land by doing it for free. The Restricted Hunting License system was born. There were risk assessments done, trials held and a whole lot of rules put in place. But the rules work for us, not against us. There hasn’t been one accident, not even a near miss in the NSW public land hunting system since the word go. One argument against hunting was eliminated by regulation. That had then to be administered, first by the NSW Game Council and later by the Department of Primary Industries Game Unit. Enter the bureaucrats. Bureaucrats collect data and measure things and eventually, the data collected showed hunting as a whole in NSW was worth $1.541 billion annually. Not all of that relates to public land, but the license system created a process whereby hunters, pig doggers included, were measured and a value assigned. Regulation won us credibility. 
  
  
  
  Our performance on public land won us more access, particularly in relation to hunting at night on public land. Another example lies in the Northern Territory. The NT Parks and Wildlife Department had experimented with hunters as pest controllers, but the nature of the environment in which the trials were conducted meant that shooters couldn’t see the pigs. The grass was too long. The APDHA has committee members in the NT and they kept talking to bureaucrats and politicians until APDHA members were allowed on site to test the dogs. Not surprisingly to us, they came up with the pigs. Numbers were collated. The trial was expanded. More numbers were added to reports and money was saved. Now there is a regulated system in place that allows APDHA members (from anywhere in Australia) access to hunting pigs in selected areas of NT National Parks. Regulation proved our worth, so much so that APDHA members have been called upon to work with scientists and indigenous groups to facilitate Northern Territory research projects of national significance. And we can still hunt in those selected National Parks if our people follow the regulations. In Queensland, the push goes on to develop a public land hunting system for us in that State. Regulation and rules will be the key to that as well. It provides the numbers we need to argue for our existence into the future. It is natural for us to resist regulation, but we have to be smarter than that. We have to be able to provide the community with reasons for us to be allowed to continue to hunt. We have to deal with issues of animal welfare and suggestions that we are cruel and we have to produce numbers. We already follow the rules put in place by private landholders to hunt their country. We have to be prepared to follow more rules to help our allies in politics and the bureaucracy produce the numbers that show our real value to the community.