The article said that "wombats are being shot on the Kings Highway between Canberra and Braidwood, either by land owners or thrillseekers using the protected species for target practice. Some shooters are even cutting off the wombats' ears to take as a trophy. Ten wombats were found dead beside the highway in a 25km stretch south of Braidwood this week."
Senior Constable Richard Pearce said "some of the wombats would have been hit by vehicles. But at least two looked to have been shot, their heads crushed and their ears missing. Another three wombats had been shot on the Majors Creek road."
The report seems to have touched a raw nerve in the community as one correspondent called the article "wild speculation" questioning the "forensic veterinary skills of the Braidwood Constabulary, 'looked to be shot' is far from a definitive enough description to warrant publishing wild speculation about supposed "thrillseekers".
Another correspondent accused the article of "typical false information coming from people with a personal agenda."
Sen. Constable Pearce said later that some animals had definitely been shot, although the majority of dead animals were victims of vehicles.
Another contributor to the online forum who lives in the area said she could "hear gun shots most weekends be it day or night". Another added "Hats off to the efforts of the Police in trying to maintain the law with appropriate respect to all parties. They have a difficult job managing an extended jurisdiction, including the notorious Kings Highway and the more remote areas where illegal shooting is allegedly rife."
A further commentator added that "the Kings Hwy is the badlands of SE Australia and Police need to respond accordingly."
Local wildlife carer Bill Bateman said that "Nobody said that responsible shooters were killing wombats. And I'm yet, with 20 years of roadside euthanasing injured animals, to see a wombat skull so mangled that you couldn't see a bullet hole. So comments about "forensic" skills are just rubbish. Also, road kill scavengers do not cut off ears; they are generally the last bits of the carcase left to be torn off; they don't go first" said Bateman. "Most interesting of all is the fact that this last 3-5 months is the first time in over 20 years of travelling daily to Canberra that we have seen 2-3 wombats together, actually touching each other; one might almost assume that in a very few cases they have been dumped after being killed."
Another Wildcare volunteer Bill Waterhouse posted a message; "I'm the pink cross guy....My wife and I check about fifty or sixty dead wombats in the district each month on the sides of roads. Most of them are "road kill" but I can assure you sceptics that wombats are shot maliciously in and around Braidwood and Majors Creek and I have photographic evidence to prove it. The local copper is absolutely correct. There's also a frighteningly large number of rednecks who use their big "fourbies" as weapons and kill native animal on purpose with their cars then brag about it in the pub later."
"There's one bloke who bragged to me just a couple of nights ago that he was disappointed he hadn't quite got to a thousand this year" said Waterhouse..."Let's just say he was exaggerating by, say, a few hundred percent- that still leave a large number of carcasses of this protected species."
Many of the comments defended sporting shooters and questioned that some animals may have been "humanely dispatched by a land owner etc after being hit by a vehicle?"
One contributor posted, "if these killings are indeed going on, then track down the mongrels and deal with them accordingly. I, and all the other sporting shooters I know, are as appauled (sic) by such goings on as anyone else...we are already one of the most persecuted sections of society, and alot of us spend alot of our own time and money trying to help out our native species by eradicating feral pests, so to be tarnished by the same brush is highly insulting."
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter