Rees' backflip on protecting wildlife from perpetual open season

Why is the NSW authority on National Parks across NSW, the spin-inspired Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), so quiet on The Shooters Party's proposed hunting 'solution' for our native fauna in NSW National Parks? DECC, as the authority and custodian of National Parks across NSW and our protected native wildlife, has a moral obligation to the NSW public to provide its expert voice to the NSW Cabinet on the issue of what ought to be appropriate strategies to target and control feral animals in National Parks. Why is the DECC gagged from doing so? Does the DECC not have a budget to physically address the high priority feral problem it reports? Where are the performance statistics for DECC controlling feral animals in National Parks across NSW? In DECC's 'State of the Environment Report for 2006 [Ch. 6.4] on 'Terrestrial invasive species', which conveniently lumps weeds with feral animals, DECC confirms that “invasive species remain one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in NSW." Of the feral animal threat ('introduced terrestrial species’), DECC identifies (in order of threat) the following: feral cats, foxes, Lantana (weed), feral goats, rabbits, exotic perennial grasses, feral pigs, Bitou bush and boneseed, exotic vines and scramblers and the cane toad. The worst offenders listed are the same usual suspects - the feral cat and European Fox. "Predation by feral cats and red foxes has contributed to regional declines and the extinction of a range of native species, particularly among small- to medium-sized ground-dwelling and semi-arboreal mammals, ground-nesting birds, and freshwater turtles (Dickman 1996)." But DECC, although recognising feral predation as a key threatening process, is somewhat vague when it comes to reporting on how it is actually responding to these target species. It mentions the need for more research and preferred strategy of 'biological control'. To deal with feral cats for instance, it lists nine threat abatement strategies to help tackle the feral cat proble. The recommended high priority actions include: preparing a plan (TAP, threat abatement plan), prioritising feral cat control based on a review of the evidence of cat impacts, researching trials into cat-specific baits that will ensure non-target species are not impacted, developing cost-effective methods for broad-scale control of feral cats (does this mean shooting them? - it is not clear), identifying the biodiversity most at risk from predation by feral cats. It talks about establishing monitoring programs for the threat abatement plans, and about more research into biological controls. But what has DECC physically done to control feral cats and foxes in National Parks across NSW, say over the past 2, 5, 10 years? Is it the chronic and neglectful failure by DECC to physically control feral cats and foxes in National Parks, beyond tokenistic planning and report writing, that has likely got the Shooters Party chaffing at the bit to do something? It's no different to our police force letting crime run rife, which forces residents to taking the law into their own hands and becoming vigilantes.