animal populations

Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee is one of fifty well-known authors and scientists who have signed this open letter to the Canberra public protesting the mass killing of kangaroos which has been taking place annually for some time in Canberra. For those interested in the history of this annual slaughter, Candobetter.net has published at length on this subject here: http://candobetter.net/SaveTheKangaroo. It is wonderful that a number of influential people have now put their names on the line to defend kangaroos from slaughter and kangaroo science from ideology. Many more people are also against this absurd and cruel practice. [Candobetter.net Editor: Republished from http://www.beautifulwild.com/. Also available here: http://www.arcohab.org/#!letter/c1yzj. Also the subject of an article in the Canberra Times.]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PUBLIC OF CANBERRA

We the undersigned believe the need for a mass killing of kangaroos by the ACT Government is ill thought out and cannot be substantiated. The analysis in support of such a program fails the tests of good science, conservation, animal welfare, economy and humanity.

We understand that: no causal evidence of any rigorous kind has been provided that directly links kangaroo grazing on Canberra nature reserves with the demise of other small threatened species. No assessment of the subjective lives of native animals in Canberra’s nature reserves is provided as a clue to their survival. No commonly used non-lethal management tools have been advocated by those who believe in the negative impact of the current kangaroo population on the rest of the environment, despite considerable evidence over many years and in many places that they are effective.

The decision to proceed with the killing disregards the extreme brutality of the killing process. There has been no assessment of the impact of mass native animal killings on the local economy and society and our view is that these costs are substantial.

The scientifically substantiated appreciation of other animals’ cognitive, emotional and psychological capacities requires that we break the cycle of violence of conventional management methods. Abandoning such measures offers a unique opportunity to find innovative solutions which promote sustainability and reflect the desire of communities for peaceful coexistence with other creatures on the planet.

We therefore call for an immediate cessation of the mass killing of these native animals, and for a full and truly independent examination of the above-listed and other relevant matters by respected professionals.

Pam Ahern, Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary, Victoria

Dr Rosemary Austen, kangaroo rehabilitation and translocation expert, medical practitioner, ACT

Dr Jonathan Balcombe, biologist, author, Animal Studies Dept (Chair) Humane Society University, Washington D.C. (USA)

Marc Bekoff, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder (USA)

Dr Dror Ben-Ami, Co-founder and lead researcher, Centre of Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Jeffrey Borchers, ecologist, the Kerulos Center, USA

Dr Melissa Boyde, Australasian Animal Studies Association; Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Law Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong

Gay Bradshaw, PhD (ecology), PhD (psychology), CEO The Kerulos Center (USA)

David Brooks, author, editor, Hon A/Prof, University of Sydney

J M Coetzee, writer

Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature, Pennsylvania State University (USA)

Dr Margo DeMello, PhD, Animals & Society Institute (USA)

Carolyn Drew, MAdEd, Executive Director of Regions, Institute for Critical Animal Studies

Lara Drew, Ph D candidate, Education, University of Canberra

Ray Drew, MA Communication Grad Cert Psychoanalytic Studies, Wildlife Photographer

Katrina Fox, journalist and author

Professor Steve Garlick, PhD, University of Technology, Sydney

Stephen Graham LLB, Virtual Lawyers and Mediators Pty Ltd.

Dr Jason Grossman, philosopher of science

Naomi Henry, Voiceless Council

Melanie Joy, PhD, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston; President, Beyond Carnism; Author

Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Modern Greek Studies, University of Sydney

John Kinsella, author, Professorial Research Fellow, UWA; Professor of Sustainability and Literature, Curtin University.

Lawyers for Animals

David Malouf, writer

Clare Mann, psychologist, author and Managing Director of Communicate31

Jeffrey Masson, Ph.D., Author

Alex Miller, writer

Raymond Mjadwesch, ecologist

Alison Moore, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong

Nic Nassuet, singer/songwriter (USA)

Mark Pearson, member NSW Legislative Council

Teja Brooks Pribac, The Kerulos Center; PhD Candidate University of Sydney

Daniel Ramp, Ph.D., Director, Centre for Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology, Sydney

Tracy Ryan, author

Stephen Sewell, playwright

Lynda Stoner, Animal Liberation NSW

Bill Taylor Ph.D., retired CSIRO plant scientist

Maria Taylor Ph.D., science communication, author, newspaper publisher

Associate Professor Nik Taylor, School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, South Australia

Marianne Thieme, Leader & Chair, Party for the Animals, The Netherlands

Dr Christine Townend, author, founder Animal Liberation, NSW, co-founder Animals Australia

Dr Richard Twine, Co-Director, Centre for Human-Animal Studies, Edge Hill University (UK)

Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel, Ph.D., Socio-Legal Studies and Human Rights, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney

Brenda Walker, writer, Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia

Bren Weatherstone, M.Env Sci., teacher (ACT)

Elizabeth Webby, Professor Emerita, Australian Literature, University of Sydney

Dr Richard J. White, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Sheffield Hallam University (UK)

Professor Stuart White, Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney

Phil Wollen, OAM Founder of Winsome Constance Kindness Trust

Gypsy Wulff, Teacher, Author, Publisher, Founder of Spirit Wings Humane Education Inc.

FACT SHEET PDF

Further action:
If you would like to help the campaign to stop the A.C.T. Government kill of kangaroos, please sign the Animals Australia petition: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/take_action/stop-kangaroo-slaughter-ACT

Petition to Shane Rattenbury, MLA, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, A.C.T. : https://www.change.org/p/shane-rattenbury-end-the-cruel-slaughter-of-kangaroos-on-public-reserves

Link to The Alliance for Respectful Co-habitation: www.arcohab.org

Taking action! If you live in or near the Australian Capital Territory, and would like to help out in the field by helping to monitor the reserves, please email Carolyn Drew at [email protected]

NOTES

Candobetter.net: Thank you to Brett Clifton for his wonderful site with photographs of many kangaroos at http://www.brettclifton.com/Welcome.html from which I have sourced the photographs in this article.

As we understand it, individual States are free to “manage” their own (protected) wildlife. However, the "management" of wildlife ends up evolving into a business of exponential commercial proportions, with momentum to keep supplying the meat and skins for domestic use and international export markets. (Photographs by Brett Clifton)

(Photographs by Brett Clifton)[1]

‘Management’ becomes mandatory to keep up demands, and we end up with a commercial kangaroo meat trade in Victoria, until now, stating there are NOT enough kangaroos in Victoria to sustain a commercial kangaroo killing industry in the State.

Authority to Control Wildlife permits granted willy-nilly by dysfunctional state departments

Victoria's deficient and seriously flawed system of ATCW (Authority to Control Wildlife) permits must be addressed and scrutinised. It's far too easy for landholders to gain ATCW permits, without getting advice on non-lethal alternatives. With so much of Victoria's land in private hands, the vicissitudes of fires, droughts, floods, on top of all the human impacts, our wildlife must be protected properly and with integrity. We already have the highest mammal extinction rate of the modern world. There should be wildlife corridors linked to national and state parks, then farmers blocking their transits would not be able to label them a "pest" - and apply for permits to "control" (kill) native animals. Planning has devolved into creating real estate opportunities rather than real planning for biodiversity and our environment. Kangaroos breed very quickly? Only about 25% of joeys survive in the wild. Kangaroos are endemic to Australia, and are native animals. Their numbers increase when there is good feed, and naturally decline in the poor times. They live in perfect harmony with the environment, and 16 million years of experience puts them well ahead of us modern humans.

State crocodile tears for starving kangaroos don't fool wildlife carers

The false empathy with the kangaroos that will "starve" and therefore must be killed is disturbing and hypocritical. The hideous massacre of kangaroos in Canberra, ACT, is shameful, Healthy kangaroos were slaughtered and incredibly became scapegoats for conservation concerns. Then the graziers blame Russia, a country that sensibly ended the import of kangaroo meat for hygiene and health concern. Livestock are eating the grass, and causing havoc is another excuse for “management”. It's the livestock industries that are responsible for high extinction rates in Australia. They denude the country of grass, eating much more than kangaroos and doing untold damage, with their cloven hooves. Human overpopulation in the Middle East and South East Asia will drive demands for live exports, further exacerbating the problem. Australia has one of the worst mammal extinction rates in the world, with 22 mammals becoming extinct over the past 200 years.

THINKK Research group at Sydney University of Technology

A report by THINKK, a research group at the University of Technology, Sydney, proved that kangaroos rarely compete with sheep and cattle for pasture?—?calling into question the legality of culling animals on the grounds that they are competing for food. The contrary it true – livestock compete with kangaroos for food, and their rapacious feeding habits and consumption pattern are threatening kangaroo survival! Kangaroos have their first young at around 3 years; they can raise one joey per year; joeys are dependent for 18 months; joeys have high rates of mortality. How can graziers and others suggest that populations can “explode”? How can “researchers” seriously provide graphs which double or triple populations, and claim that their monitoring in any sense “tracks” populations? If there are 100 kangaroos one year, and a population has a M:F ratio of 1:1, of the 50 or so does that could conceivably conceive, only 25% or so of these are likely to successfully raise their young to independence, and there may be 110 or 115 the next year, period.

Getting things in proportion

While kangaroos, other native species, and the natural living environment generally, are often considered to be in conflict with agriculture, does this label them all as “pests”? Those native species which persist in developed landscapes are the displaced remnants and tatters of native fauna trying to subsist within a landscape which has been fundamentally transformed by the human pursuit of production objectives. The power of the States must be quelled and the mask of “managing” kangaroo numbers must not be driving the commercial kangaroo killing industry, which shames Australia, the nation of the highest mammal extinctions in the world. We strenuously object to the suggestion that the industry expand to China and Russia. Aboriginal people respectfully killed one kangaroo at a time for sustenance and they used every bit of their totem kangaroo they did not kill on an industrial scale as happens today! The acquisition of a taste for kangaroo meat, by over a billion people in China and Russia , will ensure another species suffers and eventually becomes extinct.

NOTES

[1] Source of photographs

The source of the photographs was Brett Clifton and the subject was a kangaroo called Jelly and it was called, "January 2013: Jelly and the art of scratching."  You can view the series of three of this lively kangaroo at Brett Clifton's famous "A Kanga a Day" pages, here at brettclifton.com/wordpress/?p=1747

Original Source of article:

This article is based on a letter sent to the Hon Tony Burke, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (ALP), with a copy to the Hon Greg Hunt, (Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage, and Federal Member for Flinders, Victoria), on February 8, 2013 by Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.