The NSW Government’s proposed Conservation Hunting Bill risks harming wildlife and public safety

The Biodiversity Council is calling on the NSW Government to abandon proposed amendments to Game and Feral Animal Legislation, which have been titled the Conservation Hunting Bill 2025.

The proposed amendments risk serious harm to the environment, communities, local economies, and public safety, according to the independent expert group founded by 11 universities.

In its submission to the parliamentary inquiry, the Biodiversity Council states that there is no evidence to support the Bill’s central claim that recreational hunting is an effective way to control invasive species or to deliver improved conservation outcomes.

The Biodiversity Council submission also highlights that bounty schemes – which the Bill enables – have been shown to be ineffective, costly and open to fraud. Studies have found they can even worsen feral animal problems.

Other key concerns with the Bill include:

• Establishing a “right to hunt”, giving hunting precedence over other land management priorities, despite NSW having no legislated human rights.

• Replacing the skills-based Game and Pest Management Advisory Board with a “Conservation Hunting Authority” dominated by hunting interests.

• Forcing public land managers to consider hunting access when making land management decisions, which could undermine cross-tenure, evidence-based invasive species programs.

“This legislation risks putting the interests of hunters ahead of conservation, community safety and cultural values,” said Lis Ashby, Policy and Innovation Lead at the Biodiversity Council.

“This Bill would lock in a misguided approach to invasive species control, reducing the effectiveness of science-based programs and threatening the state’s biodiversity.”

“NSW is facing a biodiversity crisis. What we need is properly resourced, coordinated, science-led programs—not an expansion of recreational hunting.”

“The proposed ‘Conservation Hunting Authority’ would be a major step backwards for science-based and effective pest management,” said Biodiversity Council member and Professor in wildlife ecology and conservation Euan Ritchie of Deakin University.

“The claims being made are simply not supported by data and evidence and they are misleading the public. Its purpose is not conservation but rather a poorly disguised attempt to increase access for hunting on public land.

“At times, hunters do help conservation, as part of very targeted, intensive programs, which are coordinated and directed by conservation managers in specific situations. Those coordinated opportunities for hunters are already occurring, and won’t be improved by this bill.

“In general, recreational hunting simply does not effectively control widespread and abundant populations of feral pigs, deer, foxes, cats and many other invasive species.

“Recreational hunters killing a few animals here and there, from time to time, is nowhere near the sort of effort required to meaningfully reduce populations, and keep them low, to deliver discernible benefits for native wildlife and habitats.

“Worse, non-coordinated hunting and pest control, can disrupt and undermine coordinated professional control programs.

"Sustained, professional programs combining methods such as aerial- and ground-based culling, targeted poison baiting, and trapping, have been scientifically shown to be the best way to achieve population reductions, with the longer-term goal of eradication, and to mitigate the devastating impacts of invasive animals on farming and agriculture, biodiversity, and cultural heritage.”