MEDIA ADVISORY

Duck shooting season, 1 May. Activists gear up for protest

SAFE, New Zealand¹s leading animal advocacy organisation will take to the lakes for its fourteenth consecutive year in protest of the opening of duck shooting season.

Duck shooters at Lake Ellesmere will be told to Œlay down their arms¹ through a massive amplified sound system trucked in on an ex New Zealand army Unimog. SAFE¹s animal rescue team will scout the shores for injured birds.

Not only will SAFE address the cruelty of duck shooting but it will also link gun violence in our society with this cruel blood sport. Per capita New Zealand is the heaviest armed country in the Pacific and studies show that the majority of those who use firearms in family violence are licensed shooters.

SAFE¹s message against recreational hunting is getting through to the general population with fewer young people joining the ranks of the hunters resulting in a rapid decline in numbers of duck shooters. Their numbers have dwindled from around 50,000 in 1990 to just over 30,000 in 2003.

A media statement will be sent out later this week.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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