Fish and Game Hawke's Bay field officer John Lumsden by the protected pond, with ducks safely on it as the duck shooting season approaches. Photo / Doug Laing
Fish and Game Hawke's Bay field officer John Lumsden by the protected pond, with ducks safely on it as the duck shooting season approaches. Photo / Doug Laing
Thousands of ducks are expected to seek sanctuary in urban lakes and ponds, in one of the long-debated mysteries of the annual duck shooting season, which starts on Saturday.
The question is: do the ducks know what’s coming?
Fish and Game New Zealand Hawke’s Bay senior field officer John Lumsdenponders the question as he looks out over the pond at the organisation’s Jervoistown Environment Education Facility.
“Yes, I think they do.”
He says the number of ducks on the pond have increased in recent days and weeks. The size and age of some ducks indicates they’ve survived a few past seasons, he says.
He expects the numbers will increase further during the season, which differs from area to area but in Hawke’s Bay runs eight weeks, from May 2 to June 28, with a limit of eight ducks per shooter per day.
Whether the ducks know what’s coming is an issue that has triggered debate in the maimai for years, but experts say an apparent influx into safer water come late April and May each year is most likely a mix of autumnal migration and a sense of danger.
Lumsden says numbers on the pond start increasing “two to three weeks out”, when hunters are out preparing their maimais and stands ahead of the season.
“There were probably a hundred more here this morning than a few weeks ago,” and more so once the season starts and shots are being fired, and ducks are probably stirred by increased activity in their environment.
Pointing to the larger and older birds on the water, he says: “They’ve seen a few seasons. It’s a good time to go somewhere safer.”
He says recent rain and maize harvesting mean it should be a good season for the hunters, but there is a big emphasis on keeping it safe – and legal – for the hunters, with warnings about positively identifying targets to prevent people being shot, as has happened in the past, and to avoid shooting at endangered species.
It is illegal to shoot in closed game areas and urban areas.
Fish and Game Hawke's Bay's new hunting simulator gets a workout from education manager Kerry Meehan ahead of the duck shooting season starting on Saturday. Photo / Doug Laing
Duckshooters must be licensed and there could be more than 60,000, most driven by tradition dating back at least to the first managed duck-hunting seasons in the 1860s.
Fish and Game is a collective of 12 regional fish and game councils and the New Zealand Fish and Game Council, which succeeded regional acclimatisation societies in 1990, and estimates about 500,000 mallards are shot each season.
To help hunters prepare, Fish and Game Hawke’s Bay recently installed a hunting simulator, which has been available to licence-holders during what education manager Kerry Meehan says are “usual work hours”, while an open night was held on Wednesday.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, with more than 50 years’ experience covering events and issues.
