Comments
on the Draft
Re:2002
Kangaroo Management Program
July 30,
2002
Comments
on the Draft
Queensland Kangaroo Management Plan 2002
PO Box 155
Brisbane Qld. 4002
Email address: wildlife@epa.qld.gov.au
The Australian Wildlife Protection Council strongly opposes
the commercial killing of kangaroos on all grounds, the most
basic being the FAILURE of Australian Wildlife Authorities
to protect kangaroos from harm. Australia has legislation
which facilitates exploitation and trade in kangaroo products,
but no legislation to protect them from extreme cruelty.
BACKGROUND
The kangaroo is a universally loved icon yet millions, now
declared a resource, are slaughtered to accommodate destructive
agricultural practices. Dry, flat Australia comprises a wide
range of climatic zones and a large proportion of this natural
environment is managed by farmers and graziers, on behalf
of farmers and graziers, and for the benefit of farmers and
graziers, who care little or nothing about the welfare of
kangaroos.
Politicians
need the handful of rural seats in each State to form government,
leaving kangaroos with no chance for humane treatment, as
politicians scramble to get elected. It is in their political
interests to pander to inefficient and unproductive farmers,
who degrade and destroy the fragile landscape, making it hostile,
harmful to native animals and a constant threat to kangaroos.
These politicians get on the gravy train and lurch from one
election to the next, for short term gain and the kangaroos
pay the ultimate price of death. These politicians have no
shame about Australia's appalling record of wildlife extinctions,
only ignorance, arrogance and apathy.
While
expert in their field, the scientists on Environment Australia's
'COMMITTEE FOR WILDLIFE USE' (NOT
Wildlife Protection), are biased in favour of the
commercial harvesting of kangaroos, as evidenced by their
bible 'Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos in Australia', written
by Gordon Grigg and Tony Pople. Three of the scientists come
from the same Queensland Institution while two of those are
from the same Department and hold the same views. This is
an untenable situation to a wide range of people worldwide,
and is slowly but steadily being exposed.
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.
The
highest rate of land clearing in Australia occurs in Queensland
so most wildlife have had their habitat destroyed and they
are fighting for their survival. Destructive agricultural
practices have had a deleterious effect everywhere one looks.
An
extraordinary about-face was made recently at the December
Australasian Wildlife Management Society AGM in Dubbo 2002,
in a landmark speech by Professor Gordon Grigg, author of
the 'Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos on Australia'.
It
is on the basis of his research that the kangaroo killing
industry has flourished so it is amazing that he now says
that the damage caused by kangaroos on grazing lands has been
overestimated by up to 500%, and stating the obvious, adds
:
" This would mean that kangaroos are a much smaller component
of the total grazing pressure than is generally accepted."
( Grigg)
Further he goes on to say:
"The hope of getting a significant improvement in wool
production by pest control of kangaroos is probably doomed
to failure." ( Grigg)
"This
is the final piece of the jigsaw that removes any justification
for this barbaric massacre of wild animals by a government
which appears to care nothing for its country's rich and unique
inheritance." VIVA!
The
determination to make wildlife pay its way was notched up
another gear with the 2002 kill quota of 6,942,687 kangaroos,
close enough to seven million.
National
and International Kangaroo Protection Coalition Campaigns
are happening all over the world and it is only a matter of
time before export markets are decimated and destroyed. The
present VIVA! campaign against ADIDAS' use of kangaroo leather
is being joined by Australian groups with an International
Day of Action planned. It is foolish in the extreme, for those
in Government positions of Authority to ignore the thunderous
outcry about the way kangaroos are brutalised and made the
scapegoat for destructive agricultural practices.
Drought
and Natural Selection
Kangaroos are killed all during the drought because
Australian pro-kangaroo industry scientists ignore the importance
of natural selection. July 2, 1997 at Fowlers' Gap Research
Station (KMAC 4 day Field Trip Western NSW), a question was
posed to NPWS Neil Ward, Western Regional Manager:
"
Why are Western Greys - Eastern Greys- Wallaroos/Euros &
Red kangaroos shot commercially in NSW all during the drought?
(from KMAC Member Lindy Stacker) Neil Ward provided the
Answer: " If NSW drops quota and/ or decreases quota
due to climatic conditions, the commercial industry can't
survive, as industry needs a constant supply of skins and
meat. Reduction of quotas would mean the industry is out of
business. We need to keep killing kangaroos even during drought
or the kangaroo industry would not and could not survive"
A
recent study about fish in the USA 'Fish Thrown Back Means
Small Fry' is significant for the importance of Darwin's Theory
of Natural Selection "In the other treatment, we took
out the smaller fish," Professor Conover said. "The
big ones led to even more big ones, and these grew even faster",
than the original population." The conclusion, Professor
Conover said, is ".that size is genetically controlled,
as well as being associated with age. We need to pay more
attention to what the evolutionary impacts are," he said.
"We just can't look at the ecological effect of harvesting.
We have to add the Darwinian effect. "
There
is a strong message here for our scientists, politicians and
bureaucrats who tell us that years of commercially killing
the biggest and best kangaroos for profit has no effect on
kangaroos populations. In any wild animal if you disrupt in
a short period of time the normal reproductive processes that
have evolved over tens of thousands of years you are in danger
of putting the species at risk. This is precisely what is
happening with kangaroos. It is disturbing that Environment
Australia, the Federal Minister and State Kangaroo Authorities
cannot see that something is terrible wrong.
Cruelty
to kangaroos and their joeys
The massacre of kangaroos through State Kangaroo Management
Programs is government sanctioned cruelty on a grand scale.
In 1995 when kangaroos were removed from the US Fish and Wildlife
Service ' Threatened Species List' under their Endangered
Species Act, after years of lobbying by Australian Authorities,
it was full steam ahead for the kangaroo industry. This meant
there was no accountability to anyone and NO ONE to police
or monitor the kangaroo management programs in each state
or the cruelty inherent in kangaroo killing.
The
Code of Practice says joeys can be ripped from
their slain mothers' pouch and hit on the head with a water
pipe or iron bar until dead; shooters even bash joeys against
their vehicle or a tree trunk. Older, ex-pouch, but still
dependent joeys flee in terror when their mothers are killed,
to die from cold, starvation, predation and maternal depravation.
A million or more joeys die in this way every year.
-
No shooter will ever allow himself to be filmed killing
joeys
-
The
Code of Practice is not linked to the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals Act and is legally unenforceable
-
Contrary
to public perception, the RSPCA does NOT monitor or police
cruelty to commercially killed kangaroos
The
nightly attacks on this timid, stress prone species is horrific
and their stress levels are not measured nor is their terrified
state ever taken into account. Kangaroos are always on the
alert, ears twitching and tense, with gun shots firing and
the noise of approaching danger. Australia's kangaroos are
under siege.
The
highest rate of land clearing in Australia occurs in Queensland
, along with the use of herbicides, pesticides, chemicals,
poisons etc. Most wildlife have had their habitat destroyed
and they are fighting for their survival so as not to be just
another extinction statistic, caused by unthinking, uncaring
scientists who were responsible for the extinction of the
Tasmanian Tiger and who could have saved the Tasmanian Tiger
but didn't. ( Source: ABC TV 2002).
We
call for an end to the commercial killing of kangaroos and
the development of infrastructure for tourism to be implemented
in strategic locations throughout Queensland, working in conjunction
with the NSW NPWS . A Moratorium on the killing should proceed
immediately to give those kangaroos that have survived the
deepening drought a chance to pass on their best genes and
help to achieve some semblance of healthy kangaroo populations
from what is left of the continuing kangaroo massacres.
'Reanimating
the Dead Heart' by Dr John Auty should be pursued. Broken
Hill has paved the way in what occurred at the July 27th 2002
Meeting where Dr David Croft spoke to the locals about kangaroos
in tourism and Dr John Auty spoke about "Reanimating."
It is happening all around Australia but the main players
are slow to listen and learn.
Areas
of concern among others:
1. Cruelty to kangaroos and their joeys
2. Drought and the Deleterious effect on the gene
pool
3. Killing the biggest and best kangaroos for profit,
leaving kangaroos a teetering pyramid
4. Failure to recognise alternative ways we value
wildlife such as eco-tourism
5. Kangaroo killing orchestrated and manipulated
by pro-kangaroo industry scientists
6. Destructive agricultural practices destroying
the land and fragile habitat of native animals
7. Pro-kangaroo industry scientists manage the four
kangaroos species as one species when they are four separate
and individual biological entities with their own special
needs and requirements
Submitted
by
Maryland Wilson
President
Australian Wildlife Protection Council
03 9650 8326
