Bushwalkers and NSW hunting accidents

[flyfisher]

think it should be left as a testament to the overwhelming reasonableness of the crew here. No fun for trolls when everyone takes a measured response to a topic.

Great to see the response, with no infighting.

FF

[sambar358]

As far as the OP's question in regards to NSW public land fatal hunting incidents I think that the answer is NONE. My understanding of the woman shot in NZ was that the incident occured at night with the perps being vehicle-bound spotlighters boozed-up and blasting away at anything....while they may have been firearms owners they certainly weren't hunters or in the act of hunting. In the past 25 years in Victoria we have had 3 (I think) hunter/hunter fatalities with both the shooter and the victim being members of the same hunting party (quite a common pattern both here and overseas).....and I can recall only one non-hunter fatality about 20 years ago near Warburton north of Melbourne. So you can "never say never" with these sorts of things....but no incidents that I can recall in the last 10 years despite a virtual doubling of the number of licenced deer hunters in that time.

The distinction also needs to be made between actual hunting ie a lone hunter in the bush during daylight stalking for deer and the illegal use of firearms such as occurs with spotlighting from public roads, shooting deer on private land without permission and yobs behaving badly around public camp grounds firing shots in the night and shooting at protected wildlife etc. In the past when we've had these sorts of threads it seemed pretty common for not too many (if any at all) bushwalkers have actually encountered a deer hunter in the bush while they've been walking but quite a few had had negative experiences at camp grounds with poorly behaved groups with firearms.

From what I've heard about the NSW public land hunting the whole thing is very tightly managed by NSW DPI and hunters have to actually book on-line to hunt particular state forests and hunter numbers to these forests are limited so that hunter numbers are low and during high usage times by other recreationalists some forests have no hunting at all over that period. This "booking" arrangement also allows NSW DPI to monitor who-is-where at any particular time and if there was an incident or a complaint raised by a member of the public then those hunters booked into that particular block would be contacted I'm sure. This doesn't mean to say that other hunters aren't sneaking in through the back door and bi-passing the forest booking system of course but I think by-and-large the NSW system is working quite well and is being largely supported by hunters at this stage and there is a reasonable level of public acceptance of the system as more become aware of it in the areas that they walk in.

In Victoria we have no such system......hunters are free to access all land that is available for hunting during the prescribed hunting seasons and in most state forests 365 days of the year if they wish to. Victoria is currently in a boom-time for both deer and deer hunter numbers and at the moment we have around 34,000 Victorian hunters licenced for deer with an annual increase of around 10%.....so a popular recreational activity and becoming more popular each year while the deer numbers are high. So considering the potential number of hunters that are in the bush during the cooler months from April to November the number of actual walker/hunter face-to-face contacts are very low and even a walker hearing a shot is quite rare. And if you asked a bunch of experienced sambar hunters about how many other hunters they've bumped into while hunting their own secret gully I'm sure most would say none at all. And that's certainly the case for me as well......I would hunt sambar probably 60+ days a year and have done so for 40+ years and the number of times I've met another hunter while I've been actually hunting I could count on one hand. And in all that time I've only met two groups of bushwalkers.....none actually in the bush.....both groups were on walking trails while I was heading back to my vehicle.

Essentially deer hunters and bushwalkers use different parts of the bush and quite often at different times of the year.....most of the places that I hunt are remote, untracked and all my actual hunting is cross-country but now and again I might use a walking trail or 4WD track to get to or from my hunting destination but not often. Most hunters also hunt only in the cooler months of the year from late April to November to avoid the flies and snakes and as we have to be super-stealthy sneaking about trying to see a deer, crunching-along on the dry leaves and bark of the warmer months tends to stack the odds too much in favour of the deer. So at the time when most bushwalkers are thinking about retiring their kit for the winter....most of us are just getting ours out of the shed and thinking about what the winter may bring.

My view on this subject is that it's far more dangerous getting to and from your walking destination on the roads than it will ever be once you get in the bush.....but certainly be aware that you may be sharing the bush with a deer hunter now and again and rest-assured that we as deer hunters are also very aware that we may also be sharing the bush with a walker or two on occasions. Cheers

s358