Discussion Paper For Media-Reasons For Opposing The Kangaroo Killing

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.
It is foolish in the extreme, for those in Government positions of Authority to ignore the thunderous International outcry about the way kangaroos are brutalised and made the scapegoat for destructive agricultural practices when Tourism holds the key but for want of someone with vision to see.

August 8, 2002
Discussion paper for Media

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 with NSW and the rest of Australia not far behind, 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 at the December Australasian Wildlife Management Society AGM in Dubbo 2001, a landmark speech by Professor Gordon Grigg, author of the 'Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos on Australia':

It is on the basis of Grigg's research, drive and seizure of the political high ground of wildlife scientific authority that the kangaroo killing industry has flourished in Australia, so it is amazing that after 22 years of telling the world that kangaroos are PESTS, 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. The aim of the animal welfare/wildlife protection lobby worldwide is to destroy the markets for kangaroo products. 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.

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 the arid and semi-arid rangelands of Australia, 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 kangaroo
3. The importance of the Darwinian effect
4. Killing the biggest and best kangaroos for profit, leaving kangaroos a teetering pyramid
5. Failure to recognise alternative ways we value wildlife such as eco-tourism (Broken Hill)
6. Kangaroo killing orchestrated and manipulated by pro-kangaroo industry scientists
7. Destructive agricultural practices destroying the land and fragile habitat of native animals
8. 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 247 Flinders Lane Melbourne 3000 Victoria
03 59 788 570