The road to good provincial gamebird shooting regulations

18 Dec 2009 - by Dr Aldo Berruti

Every wingshooter knows that the chances of their compliance with provincial shooting regulations being checked is more or less zero. It is starkly apparent that compliance with regulations is dependent on voluntary self-discipline and there are no indications that this situation will change in the near future.

If one is dependent on voluntary self-compliance, then it is surely necessary to get the support of the gamebird shooters. Surely a gamebird shooter will not comply with regulations which are unrealistic, or at odds with their experience.

Take the example of the guineafowl bag per gun per day. Of the nine provinces, six allow ten birds per day per gun, whilst a seventh, Mpumalanga allows 20 terrestrial gamebirds per day, allowing for a bag of 20 guineas. Gauteng allows eight birds per gun per day. Most shooters would be well content with a bag of ten guineas. However, one province, Limpopo, restricts the bag of guineafowl to 5 per gun per day. Yet the guineafowl in Limpopo are abundant as anywhere, and large flocks are widespread and common. And as any gamebird shooter knows, it is usually difficult to take even 10% of a flock through shooting, let alone wipe it out. So which gamebird shooter would support a bag of five birds per gun per day for Limpopo?

The above example also illustrates one of the biggest sources of dissatisfaction is the differences between provinces, even those which share common species, climate and habitats. There is a frequently repeated truism that it makes no sense to gamebird shooters that a bird which is legal on the far side of a river in another province, is illegal on the near side. But of course, the Western Cape and parts of Eastern and Northern Cape are blessed with winter rainfall, and so one expects differing shooting seasons. But the anomalies are numerous.

AGRED has been driving the development of sensible regulations in partnership with SA Wingshooters through the Wingshooting Task team of the Wildlife Forum, which is a meeting of the hunting industry, provincial and national conservation departments. There have been two meetings of the Wingshooting Task team, in 2007 and 2009, aimed at bringing about greater uniformity in “ordinary” gamebirds species, bags and seasons. This meeting produces advice only, and such advice has no statutory application. The provinces are entirely within their rights to decide what they want to do.

A big achievement of the 2007 meeting was the summary developed by AGRED, which shows for each species in each province, whether a bird is an ordinary gamebird species and the shooting season and bag. This summary shows the breeding seasons in a visual format. (Should any member want a copy of this summary, please just email the AGRED office). For the first time, it showed the provinces very clearly how they differed from each other. The success of the 2007 meeting was that four provinces adjusted their regulations: with Eastern Cape, North-Western Province, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga making significant changes. Note that the existing regulations in two provinces, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape, are close to the advisory list. After the 2009 meeting, Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape made more changes in line with the advice, whilst other provinces may follow suit. We also gained better understanding of why more changes do not happen.

Provinces are constrained from making changes in annual regulations if these are dependent on underlying legislation. The annual regulations are based on legislation (provincial acts), which does not change from year to year and indeed, are only occasionally promulgated. Thus the shooting season and bag for an ordinary game species can only be changed if the species is on the list of ordinary game in the legislation. Thus changing classification of a species to ordinary game may depend on a change in the underlying legislation, which is not trivial. Fortunately, many provinces are reconsidering their biodiversity legislation, and it is hoped that many provinces will adjust their laws, baed on good information.

Two other issues which prevent changes to gamebird species, bags and shooting seasons in some provinces emerged. The first is that one province queried whether gamebird shooting is sustainable. Whilst this is a big question, it is possible to answer this succinctly, and such information has already been sent to each province. I will present this and the following issue in the next issue of the newsletter. Also, provinces clearly differ in terms of whether certain species are regionally scarce, and it is probably fair to say that provinces do not have objective criteria to define this. I am not implying that it is not simple task, but there does need to be a common approach to this question across the provinces. In the next newsletter, I offer objective reasons why Common Quail, White-faced Duck, Cape Shoveller, South African Shelduck, Cape Teal and Southern Pochard should be more widely available as ordinary game.

This interactive approach will probably require another three years or more, to ensure that all provinces are aware of the arguments and issues. We hope that a common basis for national understanding will promote more robust and uniform provincial regulations.

Dr Aldo Berruti