@kaitchung Hi mate. I could be completely wrong, but I’m getting the impression you’re more interested in obtaining a Cat C/D firearm than being a professional vertebrate animal controller. Nothing wrong with that, I think all of us here would like to be able to own any gun we like, I know I would. I know you’ve recently paid to go hunting on a property and enjoyed the experience. Again, I could be just being cynical here.
I’m not in your state but have family that are pest management technicians. Yes they have some cool guns and it’s a rewarding type of work but it’s a demanding fulltime occupation and if you’re also selling roos for meat for example as well there’s strict timeframes and procedures to follow to be able to do so.
Business plans need to be drawn up and submitted including disease mitigation, your experience in the industry and of course there’s cost of business fees/licencing/legal advice/travel etc. If you want to muster/shoot from helicopters for example then there’s obviously all that too. Obtaining a TAFE Cert III in Vertebrate Pest Management would be a good start.
Obviously not an insurmountable task but it requires a genuine ongoing commitment of a decent amount of time and money to the business. Guns are simply one of the tools to allow you to carry out your work duties.
As an aside, and not necessarily directed specifically at you, it’s always a good idea to use a different unique username for each forum or platform you register on online. Not saying that you have anything to hide and I admit I’m a bit more tinfoily than most when it comes it online opsec countermeasures so feel free to disregard. It’s just an easy thing to help strengthen your online privacy and stop/slow down potential malicious actors, whoever they may be.
Yes you did have the wrong impression, but it’s ok. I am interested in all 3 equally - going out for a hunt, get paid for doing it, and have cool guns in the process as well.
This is why I am considering taking that TAFE course.
Username - cheers for the tip. But most of the time I don’t have time to read, and take part in all these forums anyway - unless I have something specific so probably not going to impact me that much.
Here is the thing : None of doing pest hunting and having C/D guns are the mandatory elements of my life.
These are merely good to haves - when I eventually have the time & effort. If I can have them, great, if I can’t have them, so be it. And I think if you are really going to do pest hunt, you might as well apply for the additional categories anyway.
So with this in mind it really doesn’t really matter to me if someone is cheering or booing. If someone boos me and said it’s too hard, dream on. Well he’s not wrong is he? If someone can give me some tips and says "Hay here’s how you go about it … " It’s great, thank you sir. And at the end of the day a tip is just a tip, I still need to follow it up and investigate myself don’t I? And if the tip turns out to be false? So what? It’s not as if I can’t afford a few additional phone calls and conversations anyway.
And at some stage should I consider it is to my pleasure that I would at my own expenditure of time & effort; to have a detail exchange on this matter with the registry, so to get the words out of the shark’s mouth? I don’t see why not either. There will be only two outcomes : Yes or No, and neither of which will disappoint because we all know what the gun laws are like in this country already.
And It’s not as if we are living in The People’s Republic of China where people can simply disappear by simply lodging a query with a Government agency. As a matter of fact, I have called the registry to discuss something which they didn’t even think of before (temporary memory lost on what that was) … and I am still here, not dissappeared not dragged away, and locked up in Golburn Supermax.
I just don’t see why my simple post turned out be such a big deal.
The problem is that Cat D pest control opportunities are essentially a zero-sum game, so no disrespect to Brett, but the fact he is already doing it means someone new can’t, until he retires or sells his business, because there’s no room for someone new to establish a pest control business because the existing contracts are already sewn up with established pest controllers.
It’s a bit like the situation with taxi plates from the pre-Uber era; basically.
Again, that’s not a criticism or negative comment against any of the established pest controllers out there - there’s plenty of industries where there simply isn’t room for anyone new or the work involved in squeezing in outweighs the practical rewards.
