Victorian Government permits Australian Bow Hunters Association to hunt dingoes (‘wild dogs’) to collect a bounty. The Government’s own Order in Council only permits dingoes to be killed in prescribed places with “Firearms” under specific circumstances. It does not include bow hunting.
The Australian Bow Hunters Association is included by the Victorian government as an organisation eligible for the ‘wild dog’ bounty arrangement
Recent social media footage of ‘wild dog’ bow hunting by hunters believed to be a Victorian resident from south eastern Victoria depicts two bow hunters killing dingo pups by shooting them with arrows. The pups scream in agony as they die. The images are still shots from the footage, described as “self- filmed”.
A 2017 review of pest animal control on Crown Land in Victoria found that recreational hunting was largely ineffective in pest animal control. Widely accepted by scientists and policy experts, bounties do not work. Nevertheless, the Victorian government has supported the continuation of a ‘wild dog’ bounty – a product of opportunistic backroom political bargaining between the government and Upper House members of the pro-hunting Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party.
The Association for Conservation of Australian Dingoes Inc AFCAD, along with numerous respected scientists, has repeatedly lobbied the Victorian government about the meaningless distinction between dingoes (which are a protected, threatened species in Victoria) and ‘wild dogs’.
In reality, lethal ‘wild dog’ control programs kill dingoes, environmentally significant, indigenous wildlife. Recent, high quality genetic analysis shows this. The Victorian government’s politically engineered policy distinction between dingoes from ‘wild dogs’ lures hunters into the false belief that killing dingoes is a form of environmental conservation, the killers of the dingo pups in Queensland described themselves as being on a “predator control bow hunt”.
This immoral and ecologically unsound policy, is a slap in the face to indigenous Victorians, as the dingo is a totemic feature and kinship member of many First Nations Tribes and Clan Groups across the state.
Victorians and their natural environment deserve better. “
