Chris Minns hopes to reduce the feral animal population by introducing bounty hunting. Photo: File.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has flagged the introduction of bounty hunting in NSW, a proposal that has divided environmental and farming groups.
During an interview with radio station Triple M on Tuesday (27 May), the Premier said a system in which shooters were paid a small fee for every feral animal they killed would be a “novel ways of reducing the feral goat, the feral pig, the feral cat population, which has really taken over a lot of parks”.
Coolamon councillor and recreational shooter Jeremy Croker agreed it was a good idea and said it would encourage hunters experiencing financial difficulties to get back in the game.
“I do think it’ll be successful,” he said.
“It’ll encourage those people who probably dropped off a little bit with the price of fuel and [food] and everything. I think that little bit too, you know, can help cover a few costs [and] might actually encourage some of those people who probably stop going hunting as much.”
The Greens, however, slammed the proposal, accusing the NSW Government of doing a “reckless deal” with minor party Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, who have long advocated for bounty hunting.
“This deal with the Shooters Party in NSW is clearly part of a deal done behind closed doors so the Premier should come clean to the people of NSW about what he is getting out of the deal,” Greens MP Sue Higginson said.
“Labor has shown us exactly who they’re listening to, and it’s not the ecologists, farmers or frontline land managers. It’s the Shooters Party and a political culture that has no actual understanding of the environment.”
Ms Higginson claimed that “farmers should be furious” and that this is just “more noise from a government with no real connection to the land, no real plan and no real spine”.
However, peak farming body NSW Farmers said it welcomed all efforts to control feral pest populations.
“Online commentators who suggest we don’t need additional efforts in this area are seriously out of touch with the realities of the landscape,” NSW Farmers President Xavier Martin said.
“The problem of feral animals – such as pigs – is an escalating concern for farmers, and we would welcome a shared responsibility, including additional funding, to control these nasty pests.”
Environmentalist peak body the Invasive Species Council CEO Jack Gough called the idea “ineffective” and a “waste of taxpayer money”, much to Cr Crocker’s confusion.
“I really don’t see where organisations like the Invasive Species Council come from when they start to talk about things like that,” Cr Crocker said.
He believes hunters should be offered somewhere between $14 and $15 per bounty, similar to what the Victorian Government paid fox hunters in 2022. More than 80,000 of the species were wiped out that year.
“I think they’ve proven that it’s sustainable down there and it encourages the people to actually go out and target foxes,” he said.
Mr Gough also expressed concerns about fraud.
“Bounty hunters might be heroes on the big screen, but in the real world of feral animal control, they’re just a waste of taxpayers’ money,” he said.
“The government’s own agricultural department has been briefing against this because bounty schemes are ineffective at getting feral animal populations down and are often riddled with fraud.”
Though Cr Crocker thinks that fraud won’t be an issue.
“I think, it depends on which part of the animal they want to keep, for the bounty as well. [In] Victoria I think it’s a scalp not a tail,” he said.
“But I would probably encourage it to be the same as Victoria, then that would probably lessen the fraud between both of those because there’s probably been some of the foxes that have been paid out in Victoria probably been caught in NSW.”
