*Important Website, on Australia's Kangaroos*
Presenting facts and exploding myths
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/www.australiaskangaroos.org/
Further information on the "Useful Reference Websites" Page
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Roos for viewing
June 2023.
I agree that tourists would be glad to see kangaroos in their native environment, but many return home disappointed at not seeing them.
Kangaroos, our national emblem, have never overrun our country, they control their fertility in response to their environment.
They are soft-footed and do not destroy the roots of plants. Australia is responsible for the largest commercial slaughter of native land animals in the world, due to predation and loss of habitat, from land clearing.
They deserve better than to be fenced and displayed in our parklands, as Peter K. Jones suggested in the same paper. Kangaroos’ tourism value has always been overlooked, to their detriment.
Diane Cornelius
Show the slaughter
June 2023
As part of the tourism campaign to woo Chinese tourists to Australia by showcasing our wonderful kangaroos, I am wondering if Tourism Australia will also include taking tourists out for nocturnal tours to show them how our iconic animals are brutally slaughtered for pet food.
Janine Clipstone
Kangaroo welfare
August 2021
Michelle Etheridge’s article “$350,000 roo strategy” included RSPCA SA animal welfare advocate Rebekah Eyers’ statement that the kangaroo management strategy must address animal welfare monitoring.
I agree as kangaroos have fewer adverse effects on the arid environment than the millions of introduced hard hoofed cattle and sheep. Intensive farming of sheep and cattle has brought ecosystem damage and water depletion.Kangaroos cannot be herded like docile farmed animals and the fencing off of water access is barbaric.
Australia is responsible for the largest commercial slaughter of native land animals in the world. It also has the worst reputation for loss of native species due to loss of habitat by land clearing.
Kangaroos have never “overrun” our country. They do not reproduce young during droughts.
Kangaroos are our iconic national emblem. We should make more of their tourism value.
Diane Cornelius
Kangaroos-Australia's national emblem
April 2020
Australia's national emblem, the kangaroo has lived in harmony with our country for millennia.(SA pastoralists hopping mad) It has been the introduction of cattle and sheep farming, millions of hard hooved animals, that have degraded our arid country and impacted the dry soil so nothing will grow.
Fencing off waterholes, destroying habitat and excessive hunting of native animals and referring to them as "pests." They are not an ecological hazard.
Kangaroos live on and control the growth of leaves and grasses. They do not destroy the roots of plants and are soft-footed, their tails even cover seeds for regrowth.
Australia has the bad reputation for the largest slaughter of native land animals in the world and other countries won't support it. Which has nothing to do with animal activists.
Animal farming on an industrial scale in Australia is unsustainable and farmers need to diversify into the new technique of vertical, hydroponically grown vegetables in huge sheds, using solar for energy and ground-water to feed the world's burgeoning human population.
Phil Cornelius
"Harvesting" Kangaroos
December 2019
The article "Kangaroo Numbers encourage urgent export investigation'' is an insult to the many Australians who strongly disagree with and oppose the Natural Resources Committee recommendations to State government that our magnificent kangaroos, Australia's national emblem, are an "over- abundant" problem requiring a violent and commercial solution.
Kangaroos pre-existed humans on this continent by thousands of years, they are in no need of "management"
and "harvesting"- two euphemistic terms to conceal cruelly exploiting them for commercial stakeholder profit by indiscriminate mass slaughter.
Kangaroos are vital to the ecosystem and a treasure for us as well as for tourists. The Marshall government's war against our peaceful native wildlife is both deplorable and unconscionable.
The so-called community consultation process was a sham. You can read people's comments on the Draft SA Commercial Kangaroo Management Plan 2020-2024 online.
Simone Hunter
Kangaroos in harmony
February 2019
Douglas Mackenzie claims he is an advocate of the commercial culling of kangaroos, which is known worldwide as the largest slaughter of unique native land animals in the world. These animals are killed at night, dazzled by headlights, their joeys killed or left to perish.
Kangaroos cannot be herded like docile sheep and cattle.
Head-shots are difficult even for shooters, and body killed kangaroos are not accepted by the meat industry.
He is correct that "kangaroos also have far less effect on the physical environment than do cattle." This is because kangaroos have lived in harmony with their country for millennia.
Their long front claws dig the soil and their long tails cover the seeds as they pass over them.
Intensive farming of sheep and cattle has brought ecosystem and depletion of water, their hard hooves compact the soil so nothing can grow.
Only about 7 per cent of kangaroo meat is used for human consumption, and intensive commercial farming of any animals in our fragile, arid country is definitely not sustainable.
Kangaroos are our iconic national emblem, yet are seldom seen by tourists who come here for just that purpose.
Diane Cornelius
Kangaroo injustice
December 2018
Our citizens consider Australia to be a nation of animal lovers who care about animal welfare. Yet, Australia is responsible for the largest slaughter of native animals in the world: that of our iconic kangaroos.
Our government is encouraging the commercial killing for human consumption and skins for export to Europe, Asia and South America for profit.
Permits allow landholders without shooting expertise to “harvest” over 100 individual kangaroos.
Kangaroos have existed in Australia for millennia, and have done no harm to their environment. Their sharp front claws scratch up the earth and their heavy tails cover the seeds, aiding propagation of vegetation.
Imported sheep and cattle, on the other hand, denude the ground of growth and compact the earth, so nothing can grow, thus destroying the earth’s diversity. Additionally, kangaroos do not reproduce during droughts, and contrary to what animal farmers would have us believe, they do not compete with livestock for food.
Why is there no outcry against this injustice?
We can co-exist, and utilise our unique tourist attraction.
Diane Cornelius
Not pests
September 2018
How extremely sad to read about kangaroos being targeted by morons with cruel crossbows.
Iconic kangaroos have lived in their own country for millennia and have not destroyed it.
European settlement has caused them to be labelled “pests” , resulting in them being abused.
Diane Cornelius
Kangaroos not problem
April 2018
It's humans who are the "problem", not the kangaroos. (Roos on the rampage.)
Kangaroos are native to this land. We - the majority of us - are not.
Yet we slaughter kangaroos by the millions for monetary gain and we kill thousands of them because they dare to eat the grass that we want for our introduced animals who we intend to kill anyway.
I feel sorry for the vineyard owner whose crop was ravaged by hungry kangaroos but I feel greater sympathy for the kangaroos whose homeland has been ravaged by us.
Jenny Moxham
Roo trial
April 2018
The article ‘Roo trial certainty needed,’ overlooked several facts that need addressing.
Firstly, John Kelly from the Kangaroo Association claims that kangaroos are worth monetarily more when fed to humans, in a ‘protein starved world’.
There are no hospital wards for ‘protein deficiency’ anywhere in the world.
Yes, people are starving from malnutrition caused by grain and crops being fed to farmed animals rather than directly to humans.
Protein is readily available in plants as attested by herbivores such as huge elephants and cattle.
Secondly, Nationals’ Steph Ryan states, ‘‘Permits restricted to professional shooters would go some way to ensuring humane culling methods’’.
There is no such thing as ‘humane culling’. Even professional shooters find head shots problematic and many gentle animals die slowly from body wounds.
There are no requirements to report how many are killed.
Kangaroo numbers are already low.
Diane Cornelius
Hunters bring in their prey for trophies
May 2018
Referring to the article “ Hunters bring in their prey for trophies." Deer were introduced into New Zealand in the 1950s, seeing profitable deer farming grow there since then.
I went to the website of the 'Wild Buck Hunt' and was appalled at the heaps of photos of both cruel bow hunters and rifle shooters who had their photos taken with their dead prey. Demonstrating total lack of compassion. The fifty youngsters who crowded the trophy table at the Dannevirke Merrylees Hotel were being taught nothing about compassion for all living creatures.
The hotel's paltry $500 donation to the St John Shuffle would hardly have made a dint in the day's takings. As soon as an animal is called a 'pest' they become fair game for rednecks who delight in killing them. In Australia, it is termed roo hunting and the same types are cashing in on slaughtering our iconic kangaroos
Diane Cornelius
No need for roo cull
May 2018
I’m disgusted that ‘‘my’’ government is, yet again, planning to kill thousands of healthy, happy, sentient native animals. It claims that they are carrying out this slaughter to protect the environment, the same environment that it regularly chews up in order to spit out more and more roads and houses.
Then, to replace the roos grazing of grasslands, it burns them or turns them over to cattle. And to this date, it has never produced a study showing that the cull (which it has cunningly established as an accepted, annual event) is achieving what it claims – either in terms of the state of the grasslands or of the numbers of roos given that they control their own fertility in response to their environment.
These animals are not weeds, they will suffer and the government has no right to take their lives from them.
Mike O’Shaughnessy