Putting more kangaroo on the menu 'makes welfare sense'

I still remember the best pie I've had, back in 2006, at a Dunkeld bakery near the Grampians in south-west Victoria. I'm from NSW, so that tick of approval shows there is no state bias in me when it comes to pies. In fact I also swear by Tasmanian scallop pies.

My Dunkeld pie was a meat pie, beautifully cooked beef that just fell apart on biting, with a smooth sauce, a firm base and a total taste sensation that said 'Yum!'.

So I was glad to see my son was enjoying his recent schoolies break, sending me a picture of a pie from Red Ned's gourmet pies at Nelson Bay.

But this was a pie with a difference. Kangaroo teriyaki!

And the response was '"excellent". And he didn't need to be held up by Ned Kelly to eat it. (There's a statue of Ned out the front of the shop).

I then started thinking how the younger generation often lead the way, and the fact that roo was on the younger mindset was educative. I've cooked roo a few times for my sons over the years, and they've never knocked it back. It seems we battle to get roo more into our main cuisine, although I recently saw a kangaroo dish at Sydney Tower restaurant shown on Sydney Weekender that was mouth-watering.

I recently covered the kangaroo meat issue. Roo meat is now bringing $1.30/kg for commercial harvesters, nearly double the price of a few years ago.

That tells me that despite the drought and attempts by some activists to ruin Australian kangaroo exports, that the demand for kangaroo meat is strong.

It also tells me that activist campaigns may have a small effect on supermarkets, but little effect for the food service industry that takes the bulk of kangaroo meat, that customers in restaurants are only too happy to order.

Macro Meats is one of the major roo meat processors and its general manager Ray Borda recently told me they were expanding the processing plant in South Australia, a new $3 to $4m expansion.

That is a vote of confidence in roo meat.

In western NSW, the population of roos declined from 17m to 10m over the course of the three-year drought, according to figures I obtained late this year.

Farmers saw the shocking animal welfare crisis evolve as the drought took its terrible grip on the landscape.

According to the Kangaroo Management Taskforce, a group of stakeholders from the RSPCA, LLS, vets, scientists to farmers, that is working towards a better future for roos, most of the kangaroo deaths were from starvation, disease and dehydration. Commercial harvesting takes very little of the population, nominally 15 per cent of the estimated population, but this rarely rises above five per cent.

The consensus on the Taskforce is that roos are a wasted resource. And they breed up very quickly. A doe can have three young on the go at once. Very soon we will see a return to the high numbers we saw just before the drought, and the cycle of population explosion then decline will be set to go around yet again.

Almost everyone in the Taskforce is on the same page for seeking a better future for kangaroos. Most believe the best outcome is to get more people eating kangaroo meat - a high protein, lean meat, from an animal that leaves a low carbon footprint.

Ray Borda believes kangaroos will become the goats of the future, once discarded by western farmers as a pest, now they are treated like gold. A red buck goat recently sold for $9000 at Cobar, breaking the previous Australian record by $4000.

Ray Borda thinks farmers will eventually turn to kangaroos in the same way.

Well kangaroos can roam, but I couldn't. Like a farmer, I had to work from home for much of the year.

It's taught me a few things, but one big thing: we need each other more than ever.

Lockdown started in March with a Cotton Australia open house, and I didn't see another soul for my work until just a few weeks ago. But in many ways it was worth the wait. I was able to meet Shane Fitzsimmons, the former RFS Commissioner who helped guide us through the Black Summer fires. It was a Christmas lunch in Sydney - just before the latest COVID outbreak. And I thanked him for what he had done.

The subsequent story I wrote attracted some unkind remarks on the internet that he was only doing the job he was paid to do. If you know his story, how he overcame his own family tragedy, then you know this couldn't be further from the truth. Commissioner Fitzsimmons was a wayward kid, so naughty at school he was forced to sit at a desk outside the headmaster's room for a time. He really was going nowhere and had no idea what he would do in life. Remember, this is the man, who had to command thousands of RFS personnel and fight some of the worst bushfires we have seen in this country. (Many credit his professionalism for saving hundreds of lives in the fire crisis.) So, things changed, he said, for him, when he signed up as a volunteer for the RFS, as a young teenager. Suddenly his world opened and his self-worth grew. The comraderie and purpose he found in that volunteer role and working in a collegiate atmosphere changed his life. And he has never looked back.

Part of what I took from that was that inside we are not solitary beings, although some time 'in the wilderness' is often needed to recharge the batteries. We exist through other people. Unfortunately the pandemic has pushed many people into isolation. On top of that we are told where we can and can't go. Luckily we live in a country where we are responsible. Australians do this without complaint. They know they are doing it for a greater social good. We have owned this pandemic, and that is what has helped get us through, as well as the great frontline workers and great health system. But soon the limits on our behaviours will be lifted, and it's hoped people will once again re-engage with all the parts of society that need volunteers and support. That push to re-engage will be important to the future of our society.

I hope you have sourced some resilience during this difficult year and have found inspiration from some of the positive lives and stories around you. Buy yourself a pie, a roo pie.