A healthy kangaroo industry is healthy for kangaroos, there seems no doubt about it. The control of the estimated 47 million Australian roo population sits in a parlous state. While quotas on kangaroo harvesting have been reduced, the rate of meeting the quota is so pathetically low, any claim that there is widespread culling is a total myth.
The kangaroo management system is in disarray with the number of shooters falling from 900 to 300 in six years, but the kangaroo population increasing by the year, to an all-time high, at least in NSW in 2016.
Farmers used to find it much easier to control numbers on their farms, but now there is so much red-tape, very few do this.
What probably matters at the moment is the $200 million a year kangaroo industry has the right support from government. At the moment, one producer is in China seeking new market opportunities. But they often have to battle animal activists intervening in overseas markets claiming kangaroos are under threat.
Certainly actions such as those taken by NSW Agriculture Minister Niall Blair recently to increase the number of kangaroo processing licences will help. But how the government deals with adequate culling is big problem, especially with the low price kangaroo meat brings to shooters of about 70 cents a kilogram.
Kangaroo meat is tasty, lean and healthy. Only recently it was served up by the national carrier at the Qantas Lounge at Sydney Airport. Qantas is not afraid to show the worth of eating its own brand, and people should not be ashamed of eating our national symbol - after all Aborigines have done it for tens of thousands of years. Maybe a bigger kangaroo meat marketing campaign is needed. Already the industry has acted on welfare issues by supporting male only harvesting. Studies show that over 99 per cent of kangaroos targeted by professionals are killed instantly.
The Pastoralists’ Association of West Darling has told of a mass kangaroo dying event. Its president Lachlan Gall says “there is a critical animal welfare issue here to be addressed”. He agrees authorities have failed to act and the result is an animal welfare and environmental crisis.
The recent documentary, Kangaroo, appeared to get little traction. The best way to save kangaroos is to support a healthy kangaroo industry. That is the best way to stop an animal welfare crisis and keep the environment and farmers protected.
John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
