South Australia's Environment Minister has announced she will order a review into duck hunting in the state.
The duck hunting season in South Australia is set to start in March, with the review to be formally announced in the coming weeks.
The review comes after reports the state government in Victoria, the only other mainland state that allows recreational duck hunting, announced it was also reviewing its duck hunting laws.
Environment Minister Susan Close told ABC South East SA the Labor Party had already committed to a review at the 2018 and 2022 state elections.
"So at the moment, the way that the law is cast is that if there is environmental conditions, that there hasn't been pressure on duck populations ... then a season is opened," she said.
"There'll be a season that will start shortly ... the assessment is only on that basis of whether there's been a drought that suppresses numbers and therefore makes the ducks potentially vulnerable.
"But there's always been another argument, which has been about animal welfare, which is about when you have a shotgun that sprays pellets at flying birds, you are going to have some wounded for any ones that die."
Dr Close added the review would not affect the upcoming season.
She said environmental groups had raised concerns flooding along the River Murray had impacted duck numbers ahead of the 2023 season, but officially advice is hunting can still go ahead.
"I did go back and ask the department whether they were concerned they had sufficiently taken account of the floods, and they indicated that they had," Dr Close said.
"So I'm prepared to accept that the department's advice on the basis that it's getting advice [that] is sound."
Victorian decision could push SA
Former South Australian Field and Game Association president John Kentish said he expected a review into duck hunting to be announced.
He said previous reviews in South Australia, and in other states, had found the practice was environmentally safe and sustainable.
"We can't pre-empt what might happen, but I can't see that any of the scientific principles involved here have changed at all," he said.
"There isn't a single person alive today who doesn't come down from a very long lineage of successful hunters. Hunting is part of mankind."
SA Greens upper house member Tammy Franks said duck hunting was no longer "palatable" in the community.
"I think if Victoria bans duck hunting, we will see a more urgent move in South Australia," she said.
"What we will be dealing with as well as, of course being just over the border, in many cases is even more Victorians coming to South Australia for duck and quail hunting season.
"I think that's something that we don't want to be encouraging tourism of."
