Save the date- rural Victorians' invitation to MPs.

Dear Premier,

Please accept this invitation to you, (your wife and children also), Ministers for Agriculture, Police and Environment (whose responsibility it is to ensure shooting is safe, humane and sustainable), to join us for breakfast with the birds at our homes on opening week of duck shooting, third week of March 2018. Date and specific location in regional Victoria TBC if the shooting season goes ahead.

We hope, with the low abundance, low breeding of birds and the undeniable cruelty which is why other states have long banned bird shooting, that our state government will make a fair and ethical decision to halt next shooting season. The slight recovery in bird numbers due to better rainfall last year could give a chance to reverse the long term destruction of our bird life.

Frankly, our ability to enjoy Christmas and the long term recovery of Victorian bird life depends on it.

Rural Victorians including those with properties by the water where shooting takes place, have not been consulted regarding the social or economic impacts of any season. They are strongly opposed and there is substantial evidence that the economic alternative of environmental tourism would produce much better economic returns.

We would like to share with you first hand what we live with for three months each year.

We will ensure that room is kept for you and your colleagues, as local council members and the media will also be invited, to record the event.

It should make for an interesting discussion, if you can hear us above the gunfire and don't mind birds falling from the sky, around you.

More details to follow.

Please do check out some of our stories on Vimeo in the meantime! (follow the link at the end of this short clip)

Yours Faithfully,

Regional Victorians