One of the major issues farmers believe is not being addressed in the Western Division is the explosion in kangaroo numbers.
Farmers have noted a huge increase in red kangaroo numbers alone on the western plains. Red roo numbers have almost tripled since 1984 from about a population of 2 million to about 5.1 million in 2017, with grey kangaroos hitting the 3.8 million mark in 2017, compared to 2.7 million in 2006. Populations can vary wildly depending on better rainfall years.
In the meantime, commercial harvesters had fallen from about 900 to just over 200 in five years.
A Cobar workshop was told in 2016 that “unsustainably high kangaroo populations in areas of the Western Division are leading to increasing pressure on rangeland ecosystems and pastoral enterprises”.
“Populations are as high as they’ve ever been. Livestock numbers have dropped as a result.”
And according to farmers in 2018, little has changed since the workshop.
Angus Whyte, “Wyndham Station”, Wentworth, said kangaroos were the biggest factor affecting the running of his 30,000ha property. His neighbours were now working together to create an exclusion fence to try and get on top of the kangaroo pressure.
“Kangaroos are our biggest issue,” he said. “As soon as we get a bit of good rain they are straight on to the green pick and eat the paddock bare,” he said. “It is impossible to keep on top of them they are in such big numbers. The number of commercial shooters in the Western Division has dropped dramatically from 500 to about 150. Landholders have to shoot them and just let them lie on the paddock.”
Richard Deighton, “Coree”, Nymagee, in the northern part of the Western Division, said kangaroos were also the major issue for him. He had seen an explosion especially in red kangaroo numbers.
“I had a shooter out here recently and he cleaned up 50 or 60 in an hour and didn’t even leave the home paddock,” Mr Deighton said. “They are a real pest at the moment.”
The Office of Environment and Heritage says commercial quotas are “set at a proportion of the estimated macropod populations”.
“For the Western Plains, quotas are set at 17 per cent of the estimated red kangaroo population and 15pc of the estimated population of eastern grey and western grey kangaroos.”
Quotas for culling didn’t change last year.
“On the basis of the population dynamics of the species and the selectivity of kangaroo harvesters for male kangaroos, these quotas are considered to be sustainable in the long term,” according to the NSW Commercial Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2017–2021.