July 19, 2024 • 11 mins
Welcome back to our fourth edition! This week, we delve into the latest wildlife game regulations and the regulatory impact statement. We'll also provide an update on the Central Highlands and discuss the newly released Victorian Harvest Data.
Joining Paul once again is Sean Kilkenny. They kick off with news on the New South Wales Hunter Education course and then dive into the implications of the new Wildlife Game Regulations in Victoria, emphasizing the importance of public feedback via the Engage Victoria website.
The episode also covers the recent member survey, the establishment of the Great Outdoors Task Force, and insights from the Victorian Harvest Data. Discover the trends in deer hunting and the significance of game status for hunters in Victoria.
Tune in for an informative discussion that highlights key issues, regulatory changes, and valuable data for hunters and wildlife enthusiasts alike.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:29):
Welcome back. We're up to our fourth edition now, and this week we're going
to cover the wildlife game regulations and the regulatory impact statement,
the Central Highlands Update, and the Victorian Harvest Data that's just been released.
Today I have Sean Kilkenny with me once again. Welcome, Sean.
Morning, Paul. Thanks for having me. No problems at all.
We've got the New South Wales Hunter Education course coming up.
(00:52):
I believe the ticket sales are going pretty well. Well, there's a few left,
so those that are keen and want to get involved somewhere a bit closer to home,
if you're in New South Wales, snap up the last few tickets while you still can.
So if you jump onto the website and just go to the education tab,
you'll see the link there to the New South Wales court.
And as Sean said, that will sell out pretty shortly, so I encourage you to jump
(01:15):
on sooner rather than later.
All right, let's jump straight into it, Sean. The Wildlife Game Rigs in Victoria.
You flagged that the release was happening last month.
Now it's been done. What does it mean for us now?
So basically, now that the regulatory impact statement has been released,
it's there for public feedback, which runs up until 11.59 on Monday the 29th of July.
(01:40):
People can make submissions through visiting the Engage Victoria website.
They can either fill out that survey that's available there.
They can also provide a written response if they want to do something that's
above and beyond the survey in itself.
Once that survey window closes for submissions, basically everything then gets
collated by the government, the department, through the month of August.
(02:05):
They'll collate that, they'll process it, decide which way they want to go if
there's changes or tweaks to the proposed regulations.
Once they've done that basically we hit the end of August into September and
then that's when they'll announce what the regs will be and then they'll gazette them.
And we conducted a member survey the other week that's almost ready to clone
(02:26):
what are we going to use that data for?
Yeah so last week we flipped out that survey probably by the time people hear
this podcast it'll be closed but it's been absolutely fantastic the volume that
we've received the engagement from members on that.
Complementary to that, we also had a lot of people reach out.
I've had people call me, email me as well.
(02:47):
So it's been really good to have such an engaged process with our members.
Tools such as the Survey Monkey is really fantastic at just giving such accurate
data on people's sentiment on issues.
So whilst we haven't quite finished that survey, it does give us quite a good
understanding of what members want to see or what they want to think about and
(03:08):
what needs to be addressed.
When that's finalized, we'll be able to share that with people as well as the finalized submission.
And there's probably room to do another podcast that literally just deep dives
purely on the regs. We'll look forward to that into August.
So what can members do from here on in? They've got just over a week to go.
(03:29):
We really want to encourage them to submit their own feedback via the Engage Victoria website.
Yeah, that's right. There's obviously two major issues for deer hunters in these
reads, or two topics, for the most part, that would interest deer hunters.
The use of handheld thermals and a proposed mandate of using non-lead bullets.
The sentiment around them is quite strong. A lot of it comes down to individual
(03:52):
people's value you and what they think.
There is a platform on the Engage Victoria website for people to provide that feedback.
And I really would encourage people to do that. This is your one in 10 year
opportunity to have input directly on the regs.
You can write in and have your say, as well as filling out the survey that we provided.
(04:14):
So once again, jump on that Engage Victoria website and let your thoughts be
shared with the decision makers.
We'll move on from there. We'll switch over to the central highlands there,
also known as the Great Forest National Park, the Great Outdoors Task Force is kicked off.
That's right. So at the start of April, the Great Outdoors Taskforce was established.
(04:34):
It's chaired by the Honourable Lisa Neville, who was the former Environment Minister.
Minister Neville has runs on the board in our area.
She was actually the minister responsible for unlocking Snake Island for the
Blonde Bay ballot, the whole gear ballot there.
That was a result of decades worth of advocacy work and
being at the right place at the right time so the minister
(04:57):
there we've not forgotten the good work that she did the task
force has 12 months to report back to the minister
and they've already begun their engagement processes the
panel sat for three days off the top of my head in Bairnsdale
and we're one of the first cabs off the rank to have an
initial engagement there there'll be more engagements that
we have with the panel moving forward but we've
(05:19):
already started and we'll continue to do so over the next
12 months and the minister's provided some public
commentary and what's the benefit of the statements that he's made
it was actually on june the 12th so just before we met with the great outdoors
task force the environment and outdoor rec minister minister demopolis had an
abc radio interview where he made a couple of comments such as the government
(05:41):
is not looking at creating new national park and has no commitment to a new national park.
Now, whilst that doesn't mean everything's said and done, it does provide a
pretty good reference for ongoing conversations framing up what the government
is looking to do and what we can hold them to.
They don't make public comments by accident.
(06:04):
And I suppose one way of looking at it,
if you were a proponent that wanted a national park created and the minister
made those comments you would be somewhat deflated that doesn't mean that anything's
said or done at this point in time but it is quite a positive statement,
from our perspective yeah there is a long way to go we are 12 months ahead.
(06:27):
It's been a very positive start. The GMA have just released the Victorian Harvest
Data. How is that conducted?
Yeah, so this one's hot off the press. Basically, this is another good reason
or good avenue to explain to people the value of game status of deer in Victoria.
So to hunt deer in Victoria, you need a game license.
Once you have a game license, you're obviously subject to the appropriate regulations.
(06:49):
Further to that, you're able to then be a part of surveys from the Game Management
Authority. And in this case, it's relating to your deer hunting activities and your harvest data.
So basically, the GMA commissions the report and pushes it out to a marketing
survey company who then contacts,
I think it's about 200 hunters across a period of a month and asks them a series
(07:13):
of questions relating to their activities and then collates that into an annual report.
And what's the data told us so far? though.
It's quite interesting. We can see some trends over time with the harvest data.
The reporting stays the same. So look, whilst there can be some criticisms of
potentially hunter bias where they might overestimate their harvest,
(07:34):
the reality is if that does exist, it's existed from day one.
So in that sense, there is a degree of consistency in it.
We can see the value that hunters place on public land where most people that
hunt clearly Lily Samba do it on public land.
So that access, which is given to them through our advocacy work and through
game status, is quite valuable.
(07:56):
And it also shows year on year a trend on how many wild deer are harvested in Victoria.
And over the last probably five years, with the exception of 2019,
there seems to be a degree of stability where it's around give or take 10,000
from the 120,000 mark. What's the missing piece?
Relativity. That's the big one. so last year
(08:19):
there was obviously the survey that came out about deer abundance
what we're all looking to do is build the bridge
between the harvest data report and then a deer
abundance report so then we can say this amount
of deer was taken relative to the total population so that's easier said than
done but i think over probably the next three to four years we're going to come
(08:40):
a lot closer to being able to say in relative terms here this amount of deer
harvested against the population.
So there's further ongoing studies regarding population abundancies and densities.
Once that is released in a couple of years' time, I think we'll be in a much
better position to talk about relativity of the harvest and the role rec hunters play in that.
(09:02):
It's one thing I've noticed even since the bonus study came out,
there's still people that lie to a flag, millions of deer.
Yeah, look, sometimes the truth can be inconvenient. And look,
the reality is we have to be honest.
That was the first, it was the base. So that was the, and it came up with 190,000 on public land.
Moving forward, there might be data that says there's 200 or there's 250.
(09:24):
We don't know. We'll be followed by, we'll follow the evidence as we always do.
But what is obviously there for everybody to
see was there's clearly not a million and anyone that says so you'd
have to question why they would say is there anything else stood out from you
dana after i had that quick look the other day i'm obviously stuck into there
is at the moment but what did stand out was last year in the september and october
(09:45):
period there's about nearly a 300 increase on the take for that period of time
going back over the last sort of three to four years years.
Not particularly sure why that was, whether everybody spent their school holidays.
Hunting San Padillas successfully or fallow deer for that matter.
Yeah, that was the one that stood out, which was quite interesting.
That particular month, I think they harvested 37,000 deer off the top of my
(10:08):
head, whereas most other months were around to 12, sort of varied.
But yeah, there was this huge uptake and that was actually enough to skewer the data a little bit.
So it would be fascinating to know what happened in September and October of
last year that reflected such a significant harvest.
The game license numbers are showing strong growth.
(10:28):
Is it a record or second best recorded number ever?
I think it's either the highest or probably by the time we look at it this week it will be the highest.
It continues a very strong upwards trend.
If we look at for example 10 years ago
I think it was about 24,000 deer hunters hunters
now we're over 50 it's 52 53
(10:49):
so yeah it's doubling every decade yeah
that's an undeniable trend so deer hunting's a
popular pastime picture wrap for this month podcast thank you time again sean
and we'll sure look forward to the update on the game regulations data once
we have a chance to record that come the end of the month no problem paul thanks
(11:11):
again for your time no problems at all take care.
Music.
(00:29):
Welcome back. We're up to our fourth edition now, and this week we're going
to cover the wildlife game regulations and the regulatory impact statement,
the Central Highlands Update, and the Victorian Harvest Data that's just been released.
Today I have Sean Kilkenny with me once again. Welcome, Sean.
Morning, Paul. Thanks for having me. No problems at all.
We've got the New South Wales Hunter Education course coming up.
(00:52):
I believe the ticket sales are going pretty well. Well, there's a few left,
so those that are keen and want to get involved somewhere a bit closer to home,
if you're in New South Wales, snap up the last few tickets while you still can.
So if you jump onto the website and just go to the education tab,
you'll see the link there to the New South Wales court.
And as Sean said, that will sell out pretty shortly, so I encourage you to jump
(01:15):
on sooner rather than later.
All right, let's jump straight into it, Sean. The Wildlife Game Rigs in Victoria.
You flagged that the release was happening last month.
Now it's been done. What does it mean for us now?
So basically, now that the regulatory impact statement has been released,
it's there for public feedback, which runs up until 11.59 on Monday the 29th of July.
(01:40):
People can make submissions through visiting the Engage Victoria website.
They can either fill out that survey that's available there.
They can also provide a written response if they want to do something that's
above and beyond the survey in itself.
Once that survey window closes for submissions, basically everything then gets
collated by the government, the department, through the month of August.
(02:05):
They'll collate that, they'll process it, decide which way they want to go if
there's changes or tweaks to the proposed regulations.
Once they've done that basically we hit the end of August into September and
then that's when they'll announce what the regs will be and then they'll gazette them.
And we conducted a member survey the other week that's almost ready to clone
(02:26):
what are we going to use that data for?
Yeah so last week we flipped out that survey probably by the time people hear
this podcast it'll be closed but it's been absolutely fantastic the volume that
we've received the engagement from members on that.
Complementary to that, we also had a lot of people reach out.
I've had people call me, email me as well.
(02:47):
So it's been really good to have such an engaged process with our members.
Tools such as the Survey Monkey is really fantastic at just giving such accurate
data on people's sentiment on issues.
So whilst we haven't quite finished that survey, it does give us quite a good
understanding of what members want to see or what they want to think about and
(03:08):
what needs to be addressed.
When that's finalized, we'll be able to share that with people as well as the finalized submission.
And there's probably room to do another podcast that literally just deep dives
purely on the regs. We'll look forward to that into August.
So what can members do from here on in? They've got just over a week to go.
(03:29):
We really want to encourage them to submit their own feedback via the Engage Victoria website.
Yeah, that's right. There's obviously two major issues for deer hunters in these
reads, or two topics, for the most part, that would interest deer hunters.
The use of handheld thermals and a proposed mandate of using non-lead bullets.
The sentiment around them is quite strong. A lot of it comes down to individual
(03:52):
people's value you and what they think.
There is a platform on the Engage Victoria website for people to provide that feedback.
And I really would encourage people to do that. This is your one in 10 year
opportunity to have input directly on the regs.
You can write in and have your say, as well as filling out the survey that we provided.
(04:14):
So once again, jump on that Engage Victoria website and let your thoughts be
shared with the decision makers.
We'll move on from there. We'll switch over to the central highlands there,
also known as the Great Forest National Park, the Great Outdoors Task Force is kicked off.
That's right. So at the start of April, the Great Outdoors Taskforce was established.
(04:34):
It's chaired by the Honourable Lisa Neville, who was the former Environment Minister.
Minister Neville has runs on the board in our area.
She was actually the minister responsible for unlocking Snake Island for the
Blonde Bay ballot, the whole gear ballot there.
That was a result of decades worth of advocacy work and
being at the right place at the right time so the minister
(04:57):
there we've not forgotten the good work that she did the task
force has 12 months to report back to the minister
and they've already begun their engagement processes the
panel sat for three days off the top of my head in Bairnsdale
and we're one of the first cabs off the rank to have an
initial engagement there there'll be more engagements that
we have with the panel moving forward but we've
(05:19):
already started and we'll continue to do so over the next
12 months and the minister's provided some public
commentary and what's the benefit of the statements that he's made
it was actually on june the 12th so just before we met with the great outdoors
task force the environment and outdoor rec minister minister demopolis had an
abc radio interview where he made a couple of comments such as the government
(05:41):
is not looking at creating new national park and has no commitment to a new national park.
Now, whilst that doesn't mean everything's said and done, it does provide a
pretty good reference for ongoing conversations framing up what the government
is looking to do and what we can hold them to.
They don't make public comments by accident.
(06:04):
And I suppose one way of looking at it,
if you were a proponent that wanted a national park created and the minister
made those comments you would be somewhat deflated that doesn't mean that anything's
said or done at this point in time but it is quite a positive statement,
from our perspective yeah there is a long way to go we are 12 months ahead.
(06:27):
It's been a very positive start. The GMA have just released the Victorian Harvest
Data. How is that conducted?
Yeah, so this one's hot off the press. Basically, this is another good reason
or good avenue to explain to people the value of game status of deer in Victoria.
So to hunt deer in Victoria, you need a game license.
Once you have a game license, you're obviously subject to the appropriate regulations.
(06:49):
Further to that, you're able to then be a part of surveys from the Game Management
Authority. And in this case, it's relating to your deer hunting activities and your harvest data.
So basically, the GMA commissions the report and pushes it out to a marketing
survey company who then contacts,
I think it's about 200 hunters across a period of a month and asks them a series
(07:13):
of questions relating to their activities and then collates that into an annual report.
And what's the data told us so far? though.
It's quite interesting. We can see some trends over time with the harvest data.
The reporting stays the same. So look, whilst there can be some criticisms of
potentially hunter bias where they might overestimate their harvest,
(07:34):
the reality is if that does exist, it's existed from day one.
So in that sense, there is a degree of consistency in it.
We can see the value that hunters place on public land where most people that
hunt clearly Lily Samba do it on public land.
So that access, which is given to them through our advocacy work and through
game status, is quite valuable.
(07:56):
And it also shows year on year a trend on how many wild deer are harvested in Victoria.
And over the last probably five years, with the exception of 2019,
there seems to be a degree of stability where it's around give or take 10,000
from the 120,000 mark. What's the missing piece?
Relativity. That's the big one. so last year
(08:19):
there was obviously the survey that came out about deer abundance
what we're all looking to do is build the bridge
between the harvest data report and then a deer
abundance report so then we can say this amount
of deer was taken relative to the total population so that's easier said than
done but i think over probably the next three to four years we're going to come
(08:40):
a lot closer to being able to say in relative terms here this amount of deer
harvested against the population.
So there's further ongoing studies regarding population abundancies and densities.
Once that is released in a couple of years' time, I think we'll be in a much
better position to talk about relativity of the harvest and the role rec hunters play in that.
(09:02):
It's one thing I've noticed even since the bonus study came out,
there's still people that lie to a flag, millions of deer.
Yeah, look, sometimes the truth can be inconvenient. And look,
the reality is we have to be honest.
That was the first, it was the base. So that was the, and it came up with 190,000 on public land.
Moving forward, there might be data that says there's 200 or there's 250.
(09:24):
We don't know. We'll be followed by, we'll follow the evidence as we always do.
But what is obviously there for everybody to
see was there's clearly not a million and anyone that says so you'd
have to question why they would say is there anything else stood out from you
dana after i had that quick look the other day i'm obviously stuck into there
is at the moment but what did stand out was last year in the september and october
(09:45):
period there's about nearly a 300 increase on the take for that period of time
going back over the last sort of three to four years years.
Not particularly sure why that was, whether everybody spent their school holidays.
Hunting San Padillas successfully or fallow deer for that matter.
Yeah, that was the one that stood out, which was quite interesting.
That particular month, I think they harvested 37,000 deer off the top of my
(10:08):
head, whereas most other months were around to 12, sort of varied.
But yeah, there was this huge uptake and that was actually enough to skewer the data a little bit.
So it would be fascinating to know what happened in September and October of
last year that reflected such a significant harvest.
The game license numbers are showing strong growth.
(10:28):
Is it a record or second best recorded number ever?
I think it's either the highest or probably by the time we look at it this week it will be the highest.
It continues a very strong upwards trend.
If we look at for example 10 years ago
I think it was about 24,000 deer hunters hunters
now we're over 50 it's 52 53
(10:49):
so yeah it's doubling every decade yeah
that's an undeniable trend so deer hunting's a
popular pastime picture wrap for this month podcast thank you time again sean
and we'll sure look forward to the update on the game regulations data once
we have a chance to record that come the end of the month no problem paul thanks
(11:11):
again for your time no problems at all take care.
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