The duck shooting season opened in New Zealand at the weekend and will run for 3 months. Each licensed shooter is allowed to shoot up to 50 ducks per day, depending on the geographical region.
While there is clearly skill involved in hunting and shooting should it continue to be a recognised sport or is it an unwarranted display of brutality and unnecessary cruelty?
There does seem to be a tide of change with the 'sport' now banned in several Australian states, and animal welfare organisations running campaigns to have this ban extended.
Many are strongly opposed duck shooting, such as such as Laurie Levy, a veteran of anti-duck hunting activity, who argues here that “duck shooting is legalised government cruelty'; others claim that 'duck hunting will soon be seen in the same light as harpooning whales.'
However, perhaps members of the duck shooting community make a valid point, as also outlined in the article linked above:
“Our society has got into a terrible contradiction and doesn’t realise it,” said Collin Wood, of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. “If you took pictures of what happens in abattoirs and showed people, they’d be horrified and they’d go off meat. We look at a cow and just think it’s a steak, whereas ducks are wild, free animals.
“Our society hides its head in the sand. If you’re there eating a chicken or steak, don’t criticise me because I kill my own meat. Don’t preach morals to me, because you don’t have any.”
Is Collin Wood's argument fair?
Is it ok to be opposed to duck shooting but support the killing of other animals, farmed for eating?
Or can we argue that the shooting of ducks for sport is, in some way, a different argument than the killing of farm animals?
What do you think?
It is proposed that killing farm animals and shooting ducks should both be considered as examples of legalised government cruelty