they are farmed for that reason, kangaroos arent
Australia bears the shame of being responsible for the largest commercial wildlife slaughter in the world. For killing the kangaroo one of Australia’s most iconic animals, and most species are endemic to Australia.
Each year, Australian ‘roo shooters’ are given the government’s blessing to kill several million kangaroos - the very mammals pictured as the country’s national emblem and emblazoned ...on the tail of every QANTAS jet. Millions more die illegally. The approved quotas for the Australian states has allowed the 1999 slaughter to reach a staggering 5, 668, 416 kangaroos.
It is like going back 100-150 years to an America where birds were slaughtered to make feathered hats and millions of bison were wiped out to make rugs and robes. Wholesale, deliberate, slaughter of wildlife for commercial purposes on this scale just doesn’t happen any more - except in Australia.
These grim industry statistics mean kangaroos are arguably the victims of the largest commercial slaughter of wildlife occurring anywhere. This is not just an Australian concern, however. America and the rest of the world are partly responsible, for hides and meat of the animals killed are exported to use around the world.
" The nature and method of slaughter cannot be ignored. It is barbaric and inhumane. Each night thousands of animals are butchered, many are maimed, the young in pouch are cruelly dispatched and the young at foot are left to fend for themselves. Any reasonable person would not wish to be a party to this slaughter by purchasing kangaroo products."
Imagine this...
A mother kangaroo with her beautiful joey at night in the vast outback. It is a scene millions of years old. What is new is the roar of a four-wheel drive. She turns towards the noise and is transfixed by a searchlight. A rifle cracks and a bullet tears a hole in her neck. She falls, in pain and unable to save her joey, who retreats into her pouch for safety. The first thing the hunter does is to search the pouch and, feeling a joey inside, pulls him out. The hunter tosses him to the ground and stamps on his head. The joey writhes in agony.
The mother struggles as her leg is slit open and a hook inserted through it. She is hauled up onto the truck and slowly dies. The scene is repeated all night long. Older joeys frantically hop away when their mothers are shot - to die a slow and lonely death from cold or starvation. This is the reality of kangaroo killing. But the killing continues. Every restaurant, café and store that sells kangaroo meat or leather supports this massacre. And they are all fed a string of excuses by the Australian Government. Not one of them stands up to scrutiny.
"The cruelty and suffering that we have already seen in the native animal industries means that this is no longer an experiment. Hundreds of thousands of kangaroos each year are not killed humanely, emu chicks in Western Australia are "de-toed" without anaesthesia to reduce risks to handlers, and possums in Tasmania are trapped, transported and killed over a period that now has blown out to anything up to 48 hours. The trade in wildlife is a trade based on profit, without any place for compassion."
Video evidence is available in the ABC documentary "Kangaroos - Faces in the Mob" and the explicit cruelty in the International Fund for Animal Welfare film of Greg Eichner, NSW shooter - farmer. "The kangaroo killing and game meat lobby can no longer conceal the extreme brutality of their trade. For years we have been calling for an end to this industry which causes the lingering death of 1,000,000 joeys. These joeys similar to the joey Jaffa in 'Faces in the Mob' are orphaned when their mothers are shot in the so-called harvest."
All decent Australians should become active in calling upon Federal and State politicians to outlaw this trade - a trade as horrible as the slow slaughter of whales and the clubbing to death of seals or any of the other terrible abuses of wildlife around the world.
Aside from the cruelty which is inherent in the commercial kangaroo killing industry, one land holder in Western NSW has described "pitting" which is the digging of pits to bury kangaroos that have been killed illegally. These same land holders want to legally increase their income by skin only shooting which is more cruel than the carcass trade. They can shoot the kangaroos inhumanely as long as the skin itself is not damaged for the export markets and it is not detected (impossible to police).
Skin only shooting is not only more cruel but it is also open to many illegal abuses. The NSW NPWS fought a Court Case in 1996 to stop this trade and won. Now the landholders have 'friends' in political circles who they are lobbying to reopen the skin only trade in NSW. Kangaroos are killed primarily for their leather and skins. Many millions of kangaroos are killed for the shoe leather trade to Italy and the USA.
NSW farmers have threatened to use political pressure to get what they want (that is, less kangaroos). The welfare of kangaroos is only paid lip service and are the scapegoats for falling prices and incomes. A Tibooburra, NSW farmer (1999) found over 139 kangaroos dead in his front garden from poisoning (the killing is not policed). NSW land holders want kangaroos to come under the control of the Department of Agriculture and taken away from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and they are using their political clout to ensure kangaroo numbers are reduced to "tolerable" levels, which may be zero numbers of kangaroos.
"The trade in wildlife is a trade based on profit, without any place for compassion"
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Australian-Society-for-Kangaroos/181248271914864#!/pages/Cruelty-And-The-Kangaroo-Industry/116624668396225?sk=info