DEAR EDITOR:
Recent months
of bleating from Cunnamulla sheep farmers/graziers Prue Barkla,
Jamie Mc Lauren and Jenny Webster condemning VIVA! for 'destroying'
kangaroo markets have netted yet another Government handout, this
time RIRDC subsidies for 'pest' measures with kangaroo bounties.
UQ Professor Gordon Grigg, wrote " The Commercial Harvesting
of Kangaroos in Australia" in which he cites kangaroos as
pests 40 times. He has now changed his mind and says that sheep
are the villains and that the focus of kangaroo management as
pest control aimed at improving wool productivity is doomed to
failure. So RIRDC subsidies continue to be based on lies and myths.
Grigg wants farmers to kill kangaroos for a high value product,
(getting rid of sheep), but says that after 20+ years of lobbying,
kangaroos remain a low value product (dead kangaroos are a low
value product! Live kangaroos are worth much more! )We argue sheep
should go because they damage the land. Kangaroos are worth more
alive for the $$$Billion tourism industry, with tourist roads/
infrastructure which would provide many more jobs than killing
kangaroos.
The obscene commercial kangaroo killing industry would be gone
thankfully because:
- Cruelty
is inherent, unpoliced and uncontrolled
- Legislation
facilitates trade but fails to protect kangaroos
- "Cull"
(KILL) is based on lies
- 'Recent
Advances in the Scientific Knowledge of Kangaroos' UNSW July
2001 ignored by paid pro-kangaroo industry scientists
- animal
welfare/wildlife protectionists will step up their campaigns
Jenny Webster
says "We all love kangaroos and there's not a family in the
bush that hasn't had their pet Skippy or Roo Roo…
" She fails to say after they shot their
mothers.
Sincerely,
Maryland Wilson, President 03 59 788 570
Member of the NSW Kangaroo Management Advisory Committee
www.awpc.org.au
