Save the kangaroo

Photos of Acacia and Lily kangaroos are by Brett Clifton

A professional review of the ACT Kangaroo Management Plan by Professor Steve Garlick MCom (Econ), PhD, FAUCEA

Wednesday 5 April marked an historic development in the relationship between Australia’s First Peoples, our shared country and all our unique flora and fauna.

This day in Canberra, the Australian Alliance For Native Animal Survival (AAFNAS) was officially constituted at a meeting of Indigenous representatives from around the country.

Once again the Preston Beach Golf Club near Mandurah, Western Australia is undergoing a kangaroo cull. In 2007 the Shire of Waroona was granted permission to shoot 50 western grey kangaroos on this two-bit golf course and now the DEC is allowing them to kill 100. Officially the cull started on the 1st of May and the shire has until the 16th to obtain their quota.

Two 19 year old men recently appeared in court charged with animal cruelty, this is the story that appeared in the Albany and Great Southern Weekender

Recently I noticed that a new study had been commissioned by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) on the subject of animal welfare in the kangaroo industry.

Click on image for more on locality and handlers

Late 2008 a school teacher helped worried children in Epping write to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Jennings, asking him to help kangaroos marooned by development and battered by traffic.

A question to any West Australian readers: Which kangaroo was most commonly targeted by hunters in the mid to late 1920's? ... Well I'm being a bit unfair, the answer isn't a kangaroo at all as the answer is the western brush (or black gloved) wallaby. Around that period western brush wallaby skins were exported in higher numbers than red kangaroo or western grey skins. Which species is exploited most commonly these days?

Photo by Brett Clifton

Picture:3 year old kangaroo stops his recreational boxing to watch wildlife carer,
Anne-Marie Dineen (Oakview Refuge, Queensland) go past in her front garden.

Campaign supported by high profile actress

On 30 November 2009 I wrote the following letter to Anna Bligh:

Dear Anna Bligh

Media Release by Australian Society for Kangaroos:

Wildlife groups are calling for an inquiry into the slaughter of half a million kangaroos in Victoria by farmers since 1999.

According to the 1975 Wildlife Act, Eastern Grey Kangaroos are a "protected" species!

An article by Associated Press entitled: "Kangaroo tries to drown dog, attacks owner" dated Tuesday, 24 November 2009 (today), naturally drew the author's attention...

The 2009 mass slaughter of kangaroos across western New South Wales and Queensland is of a slaughter scale approximating the 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda by the dominant Hutus.

Many more photos of Australian animals interacting with Alan and Stella Reid at Wildhaven St Andrews Website, http://web.me.com/stellareid/Wildhaven

Canadian sealer about to club a seal pup. © IFAW
harpseals.org

Photo by Jill Quirk

The material below comes from the preface of a new report, prepared by Dane Wood on behalf of the Canberra Environment and Sustainability Resource Centre for the ACT Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. Available from: Canberra Environment and Sustainability Resource Centre, GPO Box 1875, Canberra 2601.

Now extinct on mainland Australia, the Tasmanian Pademelon remains a target of legalised poaching on the island.

Thargomindah's “Invasion” of kangaroos and emus

According to a new report a “plague” of kangaroos has descended on the outback Queensland town of Thargomindah in search of food and water due to the drought. Residents of the small town in Queensland have been subject to a “biblical invasion” of kangaroos and emus over the past few days and it’s causing quite a stir in this small outback community.

Photo: Rally participants

Photo by Stella Reid

It's truly time that the Australian government, farmers and Australians everywhere realised the tremendous contribution kangaroos make to our ecosystem instead of shooting them on sight as vermin and scapegoating them as 'pests'.

"Meeting a friend out walking one morning." Photo by Wildlife Carer, Anne-Marie.

'Kangaroo scrotum pouch from: http://www.australiagift.com/scrotum_shop/scrotum.htm

Young injured 'roo, "Majura Malcolm", rescued from Majura site killings, now recovering