The Australian Wildlife Protection Council wrote to Environment Australia seeking "reasons " from the Federal Minister Kemp as to why he approved the  huge quota of almost 7 million kangaroos ( 6, 942, 687)to be legally killed during 2002 and in the subsequent years of 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 up to 2006 when the Kangaroo Management Programs will be reviewed.
While expert in their field, the scientists on Minister Kemp's 'Committee in Wildlife Use', are biased in favour of the commercial harvesting of kangaroos and 3 of the scientists come from the same Queensland Institution while 2 of those are from the same Department and hold the same views.
There is no voice for the welfare of kangaroos, no voice for Tourism and related non-consumptive use, no voice to say that kangaroos should not be killed as a resource because they have intrinsic value and no voice to speak against the largest and fittest males being singled out by the commercial industry, leaving kangaroo populations a  teetering pyramid. This disregard for important stakeholders like the $6 billion nature-based tourism industry, and breaches of ecological and scientific oversight are indeed very serious.

CONSIDERABLE DISQUIET ABOUT CHANGE OF POLICY IN THE AVA which is:

" The AVA supports kangaroo harvesting in Australia  which it does following a process of extensive consultation with a large number of stakeholders."

Letter  in the AVA Journal "Australian Veterinary Association/Volume 78, No 5,  May 2000':

" Just who are these stakeholders? Are they the hundreds of thousands of tourists who fly on the aircraft bearing the symbol which they hope to see in the wild, nature lovers, environmentalists, children who sleep with toys in their shape or people like myself who abhor the wholesale destruction of these magnificent creatures." ( AVA represented on Kemp's 'Scientific Committee Wildlife Use')

And yet another voice raised in protest at the change in AVA Policy:

" The killing of kangaroos in the harvest is not culling" ( removal of old, sick, diseased, infirm)

"Kangaroos are killed ostensibly in the belief they compete with the pastoral industry for scarce resources. However, every attempt to demonstrate this scientifically has failed. In the "harvesting" large males are favoured for their skins and pet meat. This makes possible an increase in population since a greater proportion of breeding females is maintained by the available food resource. Four million kangaroos are killed each year of which probably one million or more are breeding females. In this population most have an in pouch joey and a very large proportion an ex pouch joey. The in pouch joeys are bashed to death by any available means. The ex pouch joeys are allowed to "escape". These joeys are still reliant on their mothers for supplementary feed from the teat, freedom from hypothermia, avoidance of predation, and behavioural guidance. They die cruelly in their hundreds of thousands each "harvest".

" Our support for such a "cull" is indeed "disastrous". and most of the killing fields have no future for pastoralism as shown in my pamphlet "Reanimating the Dead Heart". (Dr John Auty, may 2000)

To have such a stacked committee making decisions about Wildlife Use is morally indefensible because it does not permit discussion about other ways we value our wildlife, the non-consumptive Uses, such as  Tourism that will provide jobs in the bush for rural Australia, and a voice to say that kangaroos are worth more alive than dead. This is the committee that advised Minister Kemp.