At least 30 Victorian wetlands need to be closed to duck hunters to protect threatened species.
That's the recommendation from BirdLife Australia experts, who this week handed the state government wetland population survey data before authorities decide where duck hunters can shoot this season.
The survey accounted for 35 wetland sites, including 11 the government was not previously considering closing.
Duck hunters should be banned from at least 30 of the wetlands this season to ensure threatened species were protected, the experts said.
BirdLife Australia - a not-for-profit group that advocates for native birds - and other organisations found the wetland sites were home to threatened bird species.
Shooting there would disturb the animals' life cycles in a way that could not be "reliably mitigated", the advocates said.
"We have more data than ever before to back our call for the closure of these wetlands,” BirdLife chief executive Kate Millar said.
“With over 4000 huntable waterbodies in the state, we hope that they act on our advice to protect the threatened native birds at these 30 wetlands as an absolute minimum.”
The wetlands BirdLife wanted closed to duck hunters included Lake Wongan, Koorangie Wildlife Reserve and Andersons Inlet.
The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Change was expected to reveal what wetlands would be closed to duck hunters next week.
The department has discussed sensitive populations at Victorian wetlands with stakeholders including hunting groups, BirdLife said.
“We will continue our decades-long fight to end duck hunting in Victoria and advocate for the practice to be banned across the country," Ms Millar said.
The Victorian duck hunting season is slated to begin on April 10 and run until June 5 despite a Labor-led parliamentary inquiry proposing the practice be banned in the state from 2024.
The government in January shot down the proposal, with Outdoor Recreation Minister Steve Dimopoulos describing duck hunting as "a legitimate activity that has existed on these lands for thousands of years".
"It will continue but it has to be safe, sustainable and responsible," the minister said at the time.
Premier Jacinta Allan denied personal and union links influenced the decision for duck hunting to continue.
Ms Allan's husband has been pictured at a Field and Game event and she represents Bendigo East, an electorate with one of the highest number of registered licensed shooters in the state.
Duck hunters will have a bag limit of six per day in the 2024 season.
From 2025, there will be stricter penalties, compliance checks and hunters will have to do mandatory training.
The 2023 Eastern Australian Waterbird Aerial Survey revealed numbers for most game species of duck in 2023 were well above long-term averages after 2022's record breeding season.
However, five out of eight duck game species continued to show "significant long-term declines", compared with six out of eight of the species showing a decline in 2022.
