Gerard Scoble, a farmer and professional kangaroo shooter from Heathcote, has responded to Ian Slattery’s comments published in the Express on October 3 stating that professional shooters would never shoot a roo in the stomach.
“Maybe it’s Melbourne people coming up on the weekends, or farmers without training, but it is definitely not the professional ‘roo shooters,” Gerard said.
“There is a code of conduct in ‘roo shooting. We are tested once a year to ensure our accuracy is up-to-date and Prime Safe conduct random audits.
“If we take an animal to sell that we have shot in the body, we will lose our licence. We each have our own tag and everything is recorded.
“We’re not doing this for fun, we do this for a living. We have to take Tafe courses and undergo accuracy tests. It is very expensive to do the courses and get a vehicle harvest rack, usually costing up to $15,000,” he said.
Gerard told the Express he gets paid $1.65 per kilo and on average he would shoot a load (of up to 42 carcasses) in four hours.
“There are usually around 150 shooters in Victoria, but that number has dropped as a number of us have been laid off until the new year after the freezer at the knackery in Seymour has failed, but there are still other knackery’s operating in Victoria,” Gerard said.
“We do use high-powered rifles, but we use thermal night vision and we do not go out if it’s windy or pouring rain, we need to look after our gear.”
Gerard, who has 14 years experience as a professional ‘roo shooter across Victoria, explained that professional shooters only hunt at night and never on the back of a Ute and they either have drop windscreens or shoot from their windows.
“We only shoot when the ‘roo is dead still, not on the run, we’re not chasing them and we only take head shots,” he said.
“The joeys are too small so the policy is euthanasia, because letting them go is cruel.”
