Editorial: Shooters now hunted gatherers

I'd be forgiven for thinking duck shooters are without exception cruel, poor shots, cheapskates and alcoholics with grimy food safety practices, writes Mark Story.

Tomorrow the airspace will be peppered with shotgun pellets.

This week the newsroom fielded ample duck shooting forewarnings, ostensibly covering off every possible contingency of its perils.

The first was from the Mountain Safety Council - urging safety and for hunters to lay off the booze.

Second was a Fish & Game statement - reminding of the penalties for snubbing the rules.

Then a warning from Hawke's Bay Regional Council - asking shooters be wary of toxic algal bloom with their dogs.

One advisory we didn't get pre-season was from the body formerly known as the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, which in previous years was at pains to warn duck shooters to avoid bacterial contamination from poorly prepared birds.

If you're a duck, the latter is a pearler. Imagine the posthumous satisfaction of inflicting vomiting and intense toilet-time on whoever is responsible for knocking you from the sky. The last laugh indeed.

Then, of course, there's the annual towelling from animal rights groups, namely SAFE, alleging "mass slaughter is not sport".

If I weren't one myself, I'd be forgiven for thinking duck shooters are without exception cruel, poor shots, cheapskates and alcoholics with grimy food safety practices.

I jest, of course, but it seems they have become the hunted gatherers.

Tomorrow, with sons in tow and a recipe in mind, I'll hide under manuka scrub next to a coastal dam, holding my father's handsome Gorosabel - the same Spanish shotgun he used with us as kids.

As for the cruelty accusation, most of us who love the trimmings of the season know duck shooting has little to do with shooting ducks.