Debbie Lustig, Elsternwick
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
PREMIER Daniel Andrews will soon be announcing whether a duck season will go ahead on Victorian wetlands.
In the name of research, I visited my local wetland last weekend.
The bird life was brilliant.
A Striped-Headed Grebe, was gracefully diving and taking reeds to its floating nest.
Black swans and their pearl-grey cygnets paddling, stately and slow.
Cobalt and black Superb Fairy-Wrens with their bubbly song were hopping like restless gems amongst the shrubbery.
Following mown-grass trails lined by two-metre flag-reeds, I reached a boardwalk and crossed the bridge over a shallow pond.
If lucky, visitors to this spot will see a clutch of fuzzy ducklings scooting off, piping softly, led to safety by their parents.
There’s more – Blue-Billed Ducks, with their baby-blue beaks like watercolour wash, and rich, chestnut plumage, and the much-prized Freckled Duck – one of the rarest waterbirds in the world – with their odd, pointed heads and scooped bills, covered in flecked plumage like herringbone.
There were birds of prey and every size of bird – spoonbills and egrets as tall as a child, tiny Red-Browed Finches and yellow-splashed goldfinches.
This wetland lies between a golf course and housing in suburban Melbourne, with thunderous main roads on three sides.
Still, you can imagine you’re far away from anyone.
At my wetland, you can quietly celebrate our waterbirds – watch them behave, swim, feed. There’s a rare peace in seeing wildlife just … being.
I know of nothing else that makes me feel at once so present and so full of the spirit.
This stillness in nature is what we lose when shotguns are allowed on our wetlands for duck shooting each year.
Come duck season, the birds on Victorian wetlands are killed for entertainment.
But out here, such an idea is absurd.
Nothing is killed except what nature itself destroys. People aren’t players at all – we merely – with delight, observe.
Mr Andrews, please visit a wetland and see how special they are.
See what’s lost when the chaos of shooting takes place.
All that’s good about Victorians was evident when we poured out our hearts for the people and wildlife affected by the fire crisis.
Now’s the time for the government to signal similar compassion.
Please call a moratorium on duck shooting for 2020.
Our wetlands provide habitat, enable passive recreation and nourish our souls.
They’re our great balm in these troubled times.
