by Anna Warwick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHqaUyOGhxc&feature=player_embedded

I am greatly disturbed by the Kangaroo debate, one aspect of which came up this week in the form of the Queensland Kangaroo meat industry's bid to regain the Russian export market by cleaning up it’s act. But many experts, including Bob Irwin, argue that the entire industry should simply be put to bed.

I jumped on board this debate as soon as I heard the other side when I volunteered to MC National Kangaroo Awareness Day Rally October 2009. I was sceptical, but the "pest/sustainable resource" myth - which I had literally bought into (roo skin jacket, kangaroo bolognese) - was shockingly and finally debunked for me. The truth is that kangaroo populations have severely declined all over the country. Of an original 60 plus species of kangaroo, 20 are now threatened and 11 extinct. 60 Minutes NZ are doing a story on the issue and I believe it's time Australian journalists took another look at the facts.

Are kangaroos in plague proportions?
You hear it all the time. On November 6th news.com.au reported that"A PLAGUE of kangaroos has descended on the outback Queensland town of Thargomindah in search of food and water due to the drought."Other news sources used the inflammatory words "under seige", "invaded" and "overrun". The news.com.au report then quoted a local police officer who stated that around 50 roos and emus and other animals were coming by night to graze on abandoned paddocks and lawns and this was "a nuisance" merely. This week a kangaroo was accused by the Bundaberg News Mail of having “started a bushfire”. The facts are it was hit by a speeding sports car on a deserted Queensland road and killed. The sports car blew up and a bushfire started.

It is difficult to count kangaroos - the current estimate of the Australian roo population is somewhere between 19 and 42 million. The pre-European settlement roo population is estimated to have been around two hundred million. The cull is veiled in double speak. Internationally it is being likened to whale and dolphin harvesting for "scientific research". While the Australian govt has sanctioned the slaughter of over 1 million roos this year (in 2007/2008 the cull was a world record breaking 3.8 - not including those killed for sport or the 300,000 young at foot left to die or in-pouch young killed), the facts state that the average age of a kangaroo has gone down from 12 in the 1980's to 2/3 yrs old, barely breeding age, now. Kangaroos give birth to only one joey per year and the survival rate for joeys is low, particularly during a drought. The largest males are picked off first (effecting gene pools), but 70 per cent of 'roos slaughtered in recent years have been female. The death of a mother of two joeys effectively wipes out three generations. The Department of Environment's figures show that in most states where kangaroos are hunted they are at 'quasi extinction' levels (less than 5 roos per square km).

Is the kangaroo industry viable?
While the Department of Environment talks about the 'sustainable harvesting of renewable resources' the kangaroo industry is difficult to justify. Kangaroos could never replace more than a tiny fraction of the cattle and sheep meat Australians consume. According to the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, each full grown Kangaroo produces between 6.8 and 10 kilos of meat, 3 of which is lean and still only worth a few dollars a kilo. Even a three month old lamb produces 20 kilos of meat. A kangaroo skin is $10 per roo. There is skin and meat, but no wool.

Secondly, the way the roos are killed is inhumane. 50 per cent are killed with a shot to the face or neck from a moving vehicle in the dark, which is illegal under the Code of Practise for the humane killing of kangaroos and leads to a long, slow and painful death. Bashing, stomping on or decapitating in-pouch joeys to death is legal.

Thirdly, kangaroos cannot be farmed as their flesh becomes toxified when captive, so the meat is transported long distances and it doesn't last. Kangaroo meat is only edible semi-raw. the aboriginals ate their kill immediately. It swiftly becomes contaminated when stored and pets and humans can contract many different diseases from the meat, including cancer. Russia (formerly the largest investor in the industry) banned the importation of kangaroo meat in 2009 due to E.coli contamination and the unethical nature of the industry. Canado too, has banned the importation of kangaroo meat.

Are kanagroos a pest?
The language pastoralists use around kangaroos: "plague, invasion, pest" is negative; whereas the effect of the animal on livestock and the land is not. A six year study by Dr Steven McLeod at UNSW found "no evidence of a competitive effect of red kangaroos on sheep in terms of body mass, wool growth, reproductive output of sheep or the growth and survivorship of lambs." Roos have adapted to the Australian environment over at least 16 million years. Research shows that they rarely wander more than 400 meters from their home range in the bush, do not drink from dams (they barely drink anything compared with the livestock industry which uses 65% of all water) or eat farm crops as perceived (one proposed reason for the theoretical "plagues"), and avoid grazing livestock altogether.

In fact, unlike introduced livestock, which wreak havok on the environment, kangroos do not cause any soil erosion or release greenhouse gases. They eat the dry grass that would otherwise catch fire, and they regenerate and fertilize native grasses as they go.

Why have we turned against our mate Skippy?
I could theorise here about the size of a kangaroo, their freedom and their proximity to the top of the food chain. Do we see them, subconsciously, as a rival? Or is it just that they get in the road?

Perhaps the biggest issue we Australians have with our most famous icon is that they jump onto our country roads, causing their own deaths and the occasional fatal accident. Witness the debacle at Bathurst Mount Panorama last year where 140 roos were massacred just in case one got onto the road in the middle of the big money (environmentally disastrous) car race. John Lyle cares for the orphaned joeys from that mob at his wildlife sanctuary in Oberon. It's a full time job. In the States and Canada they have overpasses for their wildlife. Why can't we do the same for our roos? Is it just that bullets are cheaper or... do we like to kill them?

The roo myth is a symptom of a much bigger picture: apathy, ignorance and arrogance toward our ecology. It's a case of short sightedness and the prioritisation of established economic structures over the environment. There is a drought, and the remaining Australian wildlife are risking their lives to come closer to us and find food and water. In the case of Thargomindah, the cattle are gone and so the native wildlife are grazing on the de-stocked paddocks. We can't blame the farmers for the dessimation of the land and watersystems - sustainable farming is another issue - but nor can we use kangaroos as a scapegoat. We must address alternatives to culling.

Because it's not just about the kangaroos - it's about us. While the profits are being privatised, the losses are being socialised. How will we be able to call ourselves Australians if this species - our responsibility - becomes extinct within the next few decades because we turned a blind eye? What will we call our international football team? What unforseeable costs will the greater ecosystem face in this eventuality? Economically, Australia's $86 billion tourist industry is being jeapordised. Many tourists complain that they never see a single kangaroo in the outback.

We can no longer close our minds and hearts toward our national icon. Kangaroos are worth more to us alive than they ever will be dead.