Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia

Kangaroo may become a commercial Victorian venture

John Kelly, executive officer of the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia, is a persistent predator of kangaroos, for profits from their meat and skins, and is honing in on his prey.

Australia's kangaroo meat industry could soon expand into Victoria, which is the only state that does not allow the commercial harvest of kangaroos. The idea was bandied around in the 1980s, and again in 2002, but due to intensive agriculture and land clearing, the plan was shelved due to insufficient kangaroo numbers.

The Victorian government is looking at what regulatory changes would be needed to turn the "culling" of kangaroos into a commercial harvest. Up to 30,000 kangaroo carcasses are "wasted" because they are killed by farmers, due to liberal interpretation of what "pest" impacts are, and the easy gain of the DSE Authority to Control Wildlife permits.

Conveniently, this comes as the kangaroo meat industry hopes to reopen its biggest traditional market for roo meat - Russia - a country that sensibly banned the imports due to hygiene concerns.

This is an introduction to commercial killing by stealth, and kangaroos are meant to obligingly increase their breeding rates, size, range, joey survival rates, to help Victoria's ailing economy, give us more meat choices, and inflate the size of Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia's bank account. It's cruel, predatory, un-Australian and unsustainable.

There needs to be an inquiry to why so many permits to "control" (ie kill) wildlife are liberally distributed to land-holders by the DSE.

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