Kangaroo culling

Australia’s iconic kangaroos are hunted in the largest commercial slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet. Almost 90 million kangaroos and wallabies have been lawfully killed for commercial purposes in the last 20 years.

Without reservation I support the Australian groups fighting to save the kangaroo. The killing is a disgrace – cruel and entirely profit – motivated. The kangaroo is one of Australia’s original inhabitants, deserving both respect and compassion.”

Sir Paul McCartney

Among this country’s unique indigenous wildlife, nothing shouts “Australia” to the world more than the image of a kangaroo.

This beautiful creature has lived in harmony with the Australian people and landscape for countless generations prior to the arrival of Europeans. Kangaroos have had 16 million years of evolution – and 200 years of persecution.

There is now abundant evidence to suggest that the outlook for long term survival of our cherished icon has never been bleaker.Sadly, the Australian Government is subsidising the commercial kangaroo industry to promote the use of kangaroos as a readily available source of cheap meat and hides for both domestic and international markets.

Kangaroos are not in plague proportions

Those seeking to control kangaroos by killing them as ‘pests’ ignore the diversity of the different kangaroo species and their various roles in Australia’s fragile eco- system.

There is evidence that some species, such as the red kangaroo, may actually be on the brink of an irreversible population collapse.

The poor kangaroo has become a convenient scapegoat, to say they are damaging the land is propaganda to promote the widespread slaughter.

It is the over grazing by introduced sheep and cattle, maintained at high densities on the same pastures all year round, which is causing serious land degradation.

The multi – billion dollar livestock industry is loathe to acknowledge their farming practices are damaging the land, and are in the long term, unsustainable.

Eating kangaroos is not ‘greener’

Unfortunately some environmentalists promote the myth that it is greener to eat kangaroo.

Kangaroos in the wild are not an infinite resource. Nobody knows how long they can survive the onslaught of a profit driven industry intent on turning them into “green’ consumer products.

Once wild populations are depleted beyond the point of no return, we will have to live with the loss of this wrongly persecuted species.

Aboriginal culture has a deep spiritual connection to all native wildlife, including kangaroos. Subsistence use of wildlife by indigenous people cannot be compared to industrial – scale slaughter for a mass market of people and their pets, plus the ever expanding export trade.

Kangaroo meat on sale Credit - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Roke~commonswiki

Kangaroo meat on sale (Wikipedia)

WARNING: This video contains scenes which some viewers might find upsetting.

Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story

A powerful documentary was made in 2020, called ‘Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story’. It’s well worth watching. It exposes the reality of Australia’s kangaroo shooting industry.

This award-winning film captures the untold love-hate story of Australia’s most famous national icon.

Filmed in the distinctive Australian landscape, KANGAROO exposes the divisive opinions around this unique Australian icon that is subject to the largest mass destruction of terrestrial wildlife in the world.

KANGAROO is a provocative tale of investigative journalism. The kangaroo is the second most recognisable tourist symbol in the world behind the Statue of Liberty. It is an image that defines Australia to the world.

Yet since colonial times Kangaroos have been considered a pest and are killed at night in a barbaric manner.

Concerns over the animal cruelty exposed in the film along with dubious population numbers have sparked a global Social Impact Campaign to stop the brutal slaughter of kangaroos.

With stunning unseen footage, Kangaroo is a must watch for all animal lovers.

The Code of Practice doesn’t reduce the suffering

Some people think that the Code of Practice for kangaroo culling will protect them from pain and suffering … this is not true.

The Code of Practice required that culled kangaroos and wallabies are killed quickly and humanely, with a head shot.

But this is impossible to enforce. Killing occurs at night, often in remote locations and without supervision. As for all codes of practice, the animals are not monitored at the point of kill, but by spot checks of carcasses in refrigerated containers where they are stored.

Kangaroos’ heads are small targets, and shooters aim from a distance, so horrible injuries occur regularly. Shots can hit their mouths, forearms, ears and noses, for example, and the animals can escape only to die slowly of shock and starvation.

The code of practice offers no protection at all for the pouch and joeys-at-foot when their mothers are killed. Tiny hairless in-pouch joeys are killed by being swung against a tree trunk or hit on the head with an iron bar.

The code of practice is also silent on the fate of orphaned at-foot-joeys, who are no longer in the pouch, but still need to suckle from their mothers for up to 6 months. Having no commercial use, these joeys are abandoned to die of starvation or to be attacked by predators.

WARNING: This video contains scenes which some viewers might find upsetting.

To find out more, check these websites:

Voiceless: Kangaroos: Pest or precious

Animal Australia: Kangaroo Shooting

Kangaroos Alive

Australian Wildlife Protection Council