Amendments to the Game and Feral Control Act 2002 will see the feral animal eradication program extended in 79 of the state’s 799 national parks, nature reserves and state conservation areas.

Among the areas up for immediate consideration are Warrumbungle, Goonoo and Gundabooka national parks and Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve in western NSW.

Orana Hunting Club secretary Robyn Bourke said farmers whose land backed onto national parks had for years suffered feral animals destroying their crops and livestock.

She said if there were shooters who were willing to “do the job for free” and eradicate them, it was an “obvious way to go”.

“It can be a very expensive and time-consuming exercise for those farmers to try to control these animals,” she said.

“The animals come out of the national parks for a good old feed, and then go back into the national park where the farmers aren’t allowed to cull them.”

Anyone applying to cull in a designated area would require written permission, have to be licenced by the Game Council, have undertaken adequate training and comply with access conditions established by the Minister for the Environment, conditions Mrs Bourke said would help ensure culling was carried out responsibly.

“There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s prepared to shoot a rabbit, pig or fox going through the appropriate channels to do so, and there will be many strict conditions attached to that,” Mrs Bourke said.

Member for Barwon Kevin Humphries said feral animals cost the NSW agriculture industry $70 million a year.

“These are pests which damage habitat, kill native animals, kill stock, rob stock of feed and damage crops across the state,” he said.

“We are moving a logical - and sensible - extension of an existing pest eradication policy that resulted in at least 24,000 feral pigs, dogs, goats, foxes, cats, rabbits and deer destroyed in national parks in 2010-11.”

But Greens MP and environmental spokesperson Cate Faehrmann denied the move was a logical extension of the government’s existing feral animal control policy.

“Extending hunting in national parks to recreational hunters means the government has no control over the behavior of shooters in national parks,” she said.

“Included in the list of national parks in the firing line are places like the Macquarie Marshes and Myall Lakes - havens for internationally protected water birds. What on earth does the government think it is doing allowing trigger-happy hunters into nature sanctuaries like this?”

The NSW government has maintained strict protections for native animals will remain in force, with fines of up to $220,000 for harming a threatened species.