Wildlife protection

Recent mainstream media articles raise serious questions as to the policy base behind the ACT government policy to kill Kangaroos. Join us and hear about the research base purportedly in support of killing Kangaroos in the ACT. 6.00-7.30pm, Tuesday April 5th 2016, Urambi Village Community Hall, Gateway B, Crozier Circuit Kambah. Speakers: Sheila Newman, Marcus Fillinger, Frankie Seymour.

Bearing in mind the recent Crib Point tragedy - a suspected arson attack, with wildlife loss yet to be detailed, one home destroyed and one home damaged plus several sheds destroyed, we have to be more vigilant about how and whether we develop our bushland neighbourhoods more densely. Planning laws allow property owners to remove large amounts of vegetation without permission from their land citing their reason as 'fire protection'. After the vegetation is removed, those property owners may apply to the council for permission to intensify development on the land. Council usually does not deny permission for individual cases. But such individual cases mount up and create a danger which councils and planners may not have seen. The risk is that the granting of denser housing development in a bushland area means that, if there is a fire in the remaining bushland, there will be an increased number of residents needing to evacuate. Increasing population density means that more roads are needed to cope with a fire emergency evacuation. However, densification is being allowed to happen in an ad hoc, case by case fashion, without the building of roads in advance of significant development. No-one is overseeing the total impact.

What's different about this petition to tackle overpopulation in Australia? It is published on the Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) site. AWPC, it seems, is the only wildlife group that remains real and courageous when it comes to protecting our fauna. AWPC is entirely staffed by volunteers, is Australia-wide, and hasn't just become some kind of professional fund-raising organisation. This one comes from Matt Moran of Brisbane, Australia and is posted on the Australian Wildlife Protection Council site here.

Why do some focus energy
to stop the little possum he
from strutting very naturally
upon the branch that be?

New (third in series) article, latest update: "Abbeygroup bulldozers and police drive democracy from Westerfield." This is the second in a series, which began with our important, long-running article,"SEITA Bulldozers imminent on Westerfield Bushland Sth Frankston - Picket-line plans up to Victorian Elections" (was "SEITA Bulldozers threaten...". Update, Monday 27 September 2010: VCAT Appeal and Be ready on site for action Tuesday 28 Sep
On 21 September 2010, Gillian Collins, who has led the defense of the Pines Bushland and wildlife corridors, against the Frankston Freeway for years now, may have taken her final physical stand on this on the battlefield at Westerfield, where she has been manning a picket-line since Monday 5 July 2010. I doubt, however, that we have heard Gillian's last word on this matter, because as she went down, she was brandishing papers and talking barristers.

Click on picture to see film. "Knowing these young monkeys would have faced decades of painful experimentation, it was a particularly emotional moment this morning as we loaded them onto the transport truck in preparation for their journey. It was truly a relief to look each one of these incredible creatures in the eyes and make good on my promise: finally taking them into our arms of compassion."Click on picture to see film.

"THE relentless torture of a pet cat that was shot 27 times at point-blank range in the head and neck with an air rifle has outraged animal welfare authorities." [© Cairns Post, 2-Mar-09]

Clearly, the self-confessed wildlife serial killer finds his behaviour with slaughtering kangaroos acceptable to the extent he is educating his son in the same practices from an early age. It is likely he himself learnt this attitude and behavior from his own father. But animal abuse is not normal behaviour. It is immoral and unacceptable in civil society.

Animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people...than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.

[Video inside article] The recent Auditor General's Report on the incompetence of the Victorian Government's wildlife statistics collection and maintenance mean that the Victorian government could not logically have the authority to make decisions about sustainable forestry where local fauna habitat is affected, in the opinion of this candobetter.org writer and environmental sociologist. It seems to me that Environment East Gippsland has clearly won its case in advance. But we have to get the information out there so that it cannot be ignored. See also: Damning Auditor General Report on Fauna protection for Victoria

After publishing articles about reports by auditor generals in Tasmania, Victoria and West Australia, on the state of threatened species protection, I sent emails to the Auditor Generals in the ACT, the NT, NSW and South Australia.
Today I received this email from the Auditor General's office in the ACT. This response tells us that no audit has yet been done in the ACT. To me this is an indicator that the ACT statistics are probably in the same poor order as those in other states. I am grateful to the ACT Auditor General for their prompt response. The ACT State of the Environment Report referred to seemed unhelpful regarding reliability of statistics in the mean time.

Farmers are illegally slaughtering thousands of threatened hairy-nosed wombats in South Australia. Brigitte Stevens from the Wombat Awareness Organisation says burrows of southern hairy-nosed wombats are being bulldozed or blown up on Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas and in the Murraylands.

Venue: Belmore Park, Eddie Avenue end, opposite Central Railway; Date: Saturday, 24th October
Time: 11.30am to set up, 12.00pm - 2.00pm for the rally
"In the last decade, permits have been issued to allow the commercial slaughter of 49.6 million kangaroos primarily to give household pets a bit of variety in their diet. That is but one instance of a set of behaviours that suggests that, with a population of 22 million people, we haven’t managed to find accommodation with our environment. Our record has been poor and in my view we are not well placed to deal effectively with the environmental challenges posed by a population of 35 million." (Australian Secretary of Treasury, Ken Henry)

12:00pm, Tuesday 27th October 2009
Outside NSW Parliament, Macquarie Street, Sydney
Bring your signs. Bring your friends.
The Labor Government is once again doing deals with the Shooters Party. Labor has made an offer to allow hunting in 13 national parks in exchange for the support of the two Shooters Party MPs in the NSW Upper House to help pass government legislation.

ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Dr Maxine Cooper, is ACT's inaugural full-time Commissioner in the role, yet what relevant environmental qualifications and experience does the incumbent have, or indeed lack, to be officially condemning another local indigenous popluation of Australia's iconic marsupials, our kangaroos, to slaughter for pet food?

"At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) the forest issue was among the most controversial, polarizing developing and developed countries. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, intense negotiations among governments at UNCED resulted in the Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests, also known as the “Forest Principles”, as well as Chapter 11 of Agenda 21: Combating Deforestation."

Help for Wildlife Response team need feed such as hay to provide food for starving wildlife and donations for fuel to carry out the extensive search and rescue needed to help these animals. Then they need donations and medical supplies for the months of future care required by those wallabies, kangaroos and other native animals that have survived these terrible fires.
Help for Wildlife: Ph 0417 380 687 Nigel's Animal Rescue: Ph 0427 533 083

State government data pertaining to kangaroo densities across the Kangaroo Management Zones, shows that kangaroos are now 'quasi extinct' across most of NSW, South Australia and Queensland. video

See also: Open letter to Gavin Jennings regarding the stranded kangaroos at Mill Park and South Morang of 24 Oct 08

That two socially immature males would cruelly bash and kick unconscious a kangaroo, whilst capturing the sickening spectacle on video in an apparent attempt to impress their social peers, should hardly come as a surprise in a country which stigmatises the magnificent kangaroo as a pest, unlike, for example, South Africa, which nurtures and celebrates its own herds of wildebeests.

See also: Nationwide hunt for kangaroo basher (Western Australia Today) of 11 Sept 08, RSPCA launches nationwide hunt for kangaroo basher (ABC) of 11 Sept 08, RSPCA, police hunt for roo thug.

Saccharine Republican Valkyrie an immodest advocate for barbarity to wildlife, using jet-fuel.

See also:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award in biologicaldiversity.org of 17 Sep 08, Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal in seattlepi.nwsource.com of 5 Sep 08 by Rick Steiner and readers' comments,
New Orleans: The City That Won't Be Ignored in The Nation of 3 Sep 08 by Naomi Klein. How Democrat Barack Obama has incredibly surrendered critical ground to McCain in New Orleans, in which the the Rebublican Bush administration scandalously mismanaged the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Victorian Government report, "Land and Biodiversity at a time of climate change," was widely seen by Victorian wildlife organisations as a shocker. Here is an excerpt from AWPC Maryland Wilson's searing response.

These healthy kangaroos, relaxed, uncrowded, in lush surroundings are all dead - order of Australian Capital Territory government.
Housing estates due to go up around the area. (Does anyone know which developers?)

See also: Australian Political Hypocrites Order "Final Solution" on Kangaroos on 20 May 08 by Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Kangaroo cull: necessary evil and the greater good of 27 May 08 by Adam Henry on Online Opinion with comments.

It seems that even the almighty profit motive will bow to the spiritual, if it is pursued on a community scale by people rooted in that community.