ABC 666 Canberra on Be Part of the Solution campaign
ABC 666 Canberra, Morning, 10.16AM, 03/02/2010
Matthew Godson from the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia discusses an advertising campaign designed to encourage people to shoot feral animals.
Tony Peacock: Now talking about controversial topics, Alex, if you came into the Canberra Airport this morning you might have been confronted by a large sign saying: save our wildlife. Are you going out to dinner tonight? And there’s a large picture of a fox. He is. Join us and be part of the solution. It’s a new campaign by the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. So they’ve taken a large billboard to greet the politicians and travellers into Canberra and also about - I think it’s about 10 around the city of Melbourne. It’s reminding people.
Alex Sloan: It’s quite a good ad.
Tony Peacock: Well, their first one was apparently rejected by the Canberra Airport.
Alex Sloan: Do you know what …
Tony Peacock: It was too graphic, but we should have Matt Godson on the line?
Alex Sloan: We’ve - you might need to give details. I don’t think we’ve got the number for that. Did you send an email?
Tony Peacock: Yeah. Oh dear. There’s a fellow waiting in South Australia for a call.
Alex Sloan: Do you want to go out and give Virginia the number and I can do a little bit of maintenance work here, a quarter hour of maintenance.
Tony Peacock: You could play the jingle.
Alex Sloan: I can play the jingle again. You go and give Virginia the number. We’ll remain calm and [laughs] if you’d like to call this morning, 17 - 1300 681 666 and that’s 17 past 10 I was going to say. So the phone number, if you would like to put in any feral questions and Tony will answer everything from foxes to cane toads to rabbits to minor birds - I’m just thinking of a few - pigs. And the text number is 199 22 666 and Tony joins us every couple of weeks here on 666 Mornings. He’s the director of the Invasive Animals CRC. And he’s just raising the fact that - you might have seen this ad at the airport put up by the Sporting Shooters Association, Save Our Wildlife. Going out tonight for dinner? He is - and it’s a photo of a very healthy looking fox - Tony.
Tony Peacock: Yes. Well covered Alex. You’ve done that before.
Alex Sloan: I could be - I could talk for hours.
Tony Peacock: I can talk for hours. I’m just not sure anyone would want to listen.
Alex Sloan: No, well, that might be the point with me as well [laughs]. So who - we’re trying to get Matthew Godson on the line?
Tony Peacock: Yes, so we sent the email through to Alex and obviously not to the producer of the show who actually has to make the phone call. And they were looking for me out the front, listeners, because I was a bit slow in this morning. Anyway, we’ll talk…
Alex Sloan: Kinks in the system early in the year but will be smoothed out.
Tony Peacock: We’ll be highly professional.
Alex Sloan: So - and Matthew’s the national special project officer in pest and wildlife management.
Tony Peacock: Yeah, and it’s interesting, so this is the Sporting Shooters’ Association which is just, you know, a club of shooters - national club. And it’s interesting that they’re campaigning for not just their own members, hunters. They’re going out to the general public to say do people want to join them and go and shoot feral animals? Now, we’ve had numerous debates about this in the past with issues related to the Game Council in New South Wales and people shooting ferals. And the reason I wanted to address this particular campaign is that the campaign’s called Be Part of the Solution and I think this is the appropriate role of shooting and in terms of controlling feral animals. When Jacky called in she was laying baits but the disease had come through with rabbits but also, you know, you’d obviously be shooting rabbits as well. So you do need - whenever you’re talking about feral animals - to be, you know, talking about integrated management. And, interestingly, where I’d criticised those people that claim shooting can be, you know, the whole solution. They always quote a particular operation in South Australia which is a goat and pig - goat and rabbit shooting operation called Bounceback and that’s actually voluntary operations. It’s not run by a statutory authority and it’s not a random sort of thing where people just go out and do their own thing, you know, they’re really organised. And go out there in a conservation branch of the Sporting Shooters Association.
Alex Sloan: Now, we have got Matthew on the line and Matthew is from the Sporting Shooters Association. He’s the National Special Project Officer in Pest and Wildlife Management. Matthew, welcome to the show. Nice to talk to you.
Matthew Godson: Good morning Tony. Good morning Alex.
Tony Peacock: Hi Matthew. Have you had much feedback on this poster that you’ve put up at Canberra Airport?
Matthew Godson: Well, I’m starting to get a few media requests from WA to Victoria to Canberra and even Bowral. I spoke on morning radio this morning about the association wanting to be part of the solution, yes. So we’re slowly getting some feedback and it’s good that the message is getting across.
Alex Sloan: Now, your first ad was knocked back. It had - the image was described as too graphic. It had, what, the image of a fox carrying a galah in its mouth?
Matthew Godson: Yes, well that actual image we’re using in our campaign down in Melbourne CBD. So it’s just a fox carrying the galah in its mouth and the one that’s actually in the Canberra Airport is - if you look closely it’s just got a little bit of feathers.
Alex Sloan: You’ve airbrushed the galah out?
Matthew Godson: No no, it wasn’t airbrushed. It was a second photo that was captured of that fox.
Tony Peacock: So, Matthew, the city of Goulburn is less conservative than the airport at Canberra?
Alex Sloan: The city of Melbourne.
Tony Peacock: They’ve accepted your graphic one where Canberra has censored it?
Matthew Godson: Well, it’s not that they’ve censored the image as it was too graphic. Basically it wasn’t accepted and you sort of can sort of - it was a bit of an assumption to say that it may have been too graphic. The airport didn’t give a reason for rejecting the first one but it’s probably a 90 per cent chance that the picture of a galah in a fox’s mouth might - in their opinion, may have scared some children.
Tony Peacock: Well, talking of that, I mean, there’s a five foot face of an ex-governor of the Reserve Bank as you get off the plane at Canberra Airport.
Alex Sloan: That’s much more frightening.
Tony Peacock: I’ve had the odd experience of walking through with Bernie just ahead of me going that’s weird.
Alex Sloan: But, at the heart of this is about the Sporting Shooters’ campaign for freedom to hunt, Matthew, is that at the heart of this?
Matthew Godson: Well, not really. The heart of this idea is to get the awareness out amongst the public and also the members as in our members who probably spend a lot of time on the range target shooting. I certainly see them as a resource of a specific skill that certainly can be used for conservation benefit. And also - it’s also a little bit of a membership drive as well to try and bring in some new members into the association to help with, I guess, future programs to try and tackle some of these damaging introduced species problems that we have across the nation.
Tony Peacock: So, if I’m, you know, a person in Canberra that has an interest in this message, can I call somebody and find out about membership and that sort of thing? Because it’s not easy to organise to get a gun licence and stuff like that, is it?
Matthew Godson: It’s certainly not. If people are interested in joining the SSAA, each state has a separate state office and from that they have branches. Our website which is ssaa.org.au has links to all the state offices where people can enquire. And also we’ve got a little bit of information on our website about the campaign as well. This campaign, as I said to Tony yesterday, is just the start of a program which I hope to introduce over the coming year.
Tony Peacock: And if - on the other hand, if I was a farmer around the Canberra area, would it be useful to let you know if I wanted shooters to come out and do a bit of work on the foxes, or whatever?
Matthew Godson: Yes.
Tony Peacock: Is there sort of a matching service, if you like?
Matthew Godson: Well, like - what I’m trying to do at the moment is to try and find some farmers groups where I could sort of engage with and have discussions and try and develop a model of a program that I can pull some resources from our members that we have on our database. That’s sort of what I’m trying to achieve over the next year to try and find some farming groups that want to sit down with me, have a chat, and work out some objectives and some aims and get something practical happening on the ground. In regards to individual farmers, it would be a good step to contact their local SSAA branch and they may have some members there already participating in - like a hunting group within their class.
Alex Sloan: So placing this sign at Canberra Airport, this is - you know, this is about a bit of a political campaign, from your organisation?
Tony Peacock: Well, certainly. We have, like a national lobbyist who comes into Canberra every time parliament sits and, yeah, I also fly in and fly out of Canberra at times. We started the campaign in Canberra because of, I guess, our national presence there as well as in Victoria where the SSAA Victoria is sort of working in conjunction with other organisations and also the Government with a program down there called FoxStop.
Alex Sloan: Okay.
Tony Peacock: Great.
Alex Sloan: Alright.
Tony Peacock: Well, good luck with that campaign and let us know if you get reaction from Canberra.
Matthew Godson: Certainly, and I’d love to keep you up-to-date with it and even maybe bounce some ideas off you.
Alex Sloan: That’s what he’s there for. We can’t stop him talking though, Matthew. Matthew, nice to talk you to you. Thank you very much.
Matthew Godson: Alright, thank you.
Alex Sloan: Matthew Godson who is from the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia and he’s the National Special Project Officer in Pest and Wildlife Management.
Tony Peacock: It’s a long title, isn’t it?
Alex Sloan: Yeah, you’ll see the fox ad.
Tony Peacock: Yeah, I hadn’t noticed it yet. Haven’t been in and out of the airport as much as usual, but I start again in a few weeks.
Alex Sloan: Yes.
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