Save the Roo !
...Rec shooters are not doing any damage to the survival of the kangaroos as a species. Regular culls are just keeping the species in check. Those that think we should sit on our hands and do nothing about the problem are deluded....The current strategy is regular cull's and I'm sure that there were study's and scientific papers written on the subject from both sides and the only answer that was given was regular cull's....
I am anything but deluded on the issue of the probable extinction in the very near future of Kangaroos and Wallabies in Australia. We still haven't recieved any serious study of the impact the horrendous 2003 cull had on the major roo species in NSW alone (where over two million were given over to the Final Solution Strategy. Some of the concerns about this awful slaughter that were raised then by Maryland Wilson are still relevant now, and I include them below:
Richard Wells
QUOTE
KILLING OF THE ALPHA MALES
" When a shooter enters the structured society of a mob of kangaroos, he destroys a rich, complex system by killing the alpha male, his immediate rivals, and the older females, who are the educators of the mob. This selective hunting results in females mating with young males and the loss of the inherited strengths of the mob."
The alpha male is critical for the social fabric of wild populations but for decades, the kangaroo killing industry has commercially targeted for profit, the alpha males. Night after night, kangaroo shooters have entered their domain and attacked the mobs of 'stress prone ' kangaroos, breaking up and destroying their family groups, killing their joeys, leaving them stressed, frightened and fearful . The late Dr Peter Rawlinson, zoologist La Trobe University said that when wild populations are under such stress, they breed furiously to preserve their species in a desperate attempt to prevent their demise.
NSW NPWS 2003 KANGAROO QUOTA IS IRRESPONSIBLE ; DROUGHT ADVERSELY AFFECTS 'ROOS
The NSW NPWS has failed to take into account the Precautionary Principle and has instead created a climate of economic opportunism to the detriment of kangaroo populations, particularly during this ever worsening current 2002 drought, without due regard for the welfare and future survival of kangaroos.
NPWS ignores the scientific advice from Dr Graham Caughley who warned that all kangaroo killing should cease during drought to allow the strongest to survive. This present environmental crisis warrants an immediate moratorium on kangaroo killing to allow the strongest of the species to survive. But NPWS continues its charade, and issues kangaroo destruction permits to any landholder who wants them, handing our wildlife icons over as a prize, with no questions asked. Such action is irresponsible.
Instead NPWS says " The Government appreciates the problems facing the landholders in drought-affected areas. In response to concerns raised by graziers, the Government has given an undertaking that the NPWS and NSW Agriculture will review the skin-only option as part of its drought assistance package…the Government will carefully assess its potential impact on the kangaroo industry, which is one of the most significant employers in the State's west, and an industry worth $70 million in NSW."
NSW BANNED SKIN ONLY SHOOTING (1997) DUE TO CRUELTY AND IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO POLICE
'FAST TRACKING' NON-COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS TO KILL KANGAROOS
Letter from Terry Korn NSW NPWS Director Western 24.9.2002 ( Re-introduction of skin only shooting)
" The NSW Government's extensive drought relief measures announced recently, included a commitment to "fast track" non-commercial applications to cull kangaroos. Farmers can get a free non-commercial license from the NPWS to shoot kangaroos that are competing for scarce resources in drought- affected areas. The license lasts for a period of three months. This initiative has been well received by landholders and the NPWS will continue to give priority to this program." Terry Korn NPWS
COMMERCIAL KILLING SEEN AS THE GOAL AND SCIENCE FOLLOWS SET PARAMETRES
Grigg and Pople refer to kangaroos as "pests" 40 times in their "Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos in Australia"
The 'Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos in Australia', written by Gordon Grigg and Tony Pople is used as the definitive bible by Environment Australia for kangaroo management. It provides the basis upon which all scientific data is cynically used to justify the killing of millions of kangaroos each year.
Grigg and Pople provide the 'scientific' parametres for commercial kangaroo killing.
"Harvesting will invariably involve some injuries and protracted deaths. To harvest a sustained yield from a population at steady density, it first must be manipulated in some way to promote the rate of increase. (e.g. reduce it below its ecological carrying capacity or supplement its resources)"
"Rates of harvest may be raised to levels at which they can cause the extinction of the populations (Arguments will be confounded when there are non-consumptive values attached to the resource such as for Tourism)."
Governments pay Gordon Grigg, Tony Pople, Peter Hale, Steve Mc Leod, Stuart Cairns etc for their research and provide $$$ in subsidies to prop up a brutally cruel kangaroo industry which would not survive without such generous and on going help, to counteract growing worldwide condemnation
ARTIFICIAL MANIPULATION OF KANGAROO POPULATIONS INCREASES POPULATIONS
THEN THE SCIENTISTS COUNT THE ARTIFICIALLY HIGH POPULATIONS AND SET THE QUOTAS
Australian scientists defy natural selection and artificially manipulate populations to accommodate the commercial kangaroo industry and papers produced by these scientists start from their basic political premise that kangaroos be commercially killed as a resource . They then produce facts and figures to accommodate and support the need for a commercial kangaroo killing industry.
In the 2002 Kangaroo Management Program, 'damage mitigation' was removed because it could not be audited, as the sole cause of killing kangaroos and kangaroos are killed as a resource to provide profits.
Official Policy of Environment Australia
"Australian native wildlife is a renewable resource. If managed in an ecologically sustainable manner, wildlife can provide a perpetual source of economic benefits for all Australians."
AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS ARTIFICIALLY MANIPULATE KANGAROO POPULATIONS WITH AN UP TO 80% MALE BIAS IN COMMERCIAL KILLING, THUS DEFYING NATURAL SELECTION SO ESSENTIAL TO WILD POPULATIONS, AND CAUSING A CONSTANT EROSION OF THE GENE POOL
Letter from SA Environment Minister David Wooten 24 March 1982
"The Department is encouraging the increased harvesting of smaller kangaroos including females, as there is concern at the effect of preferential harvesting of larger kangaroos. Male kangaroos are generally larger than the females and the continued taking of the elite males could result in a deterioration of the quality of the population as a whole, because the smaller and less robust males would tend to be conserved while the larger, healthier animals would be shot out. The reduction in the number of female animals would also reduce the breeding rate of the overall population and therefore reduce the need for such high killing rates as is necessary at the present time"
' ROO SLAUGHTER FEAR' LOSS OF GENE POOL
The Sydney Sun Herald 5/1/1997 by Fia Cumming :
"A WILDLIFE expert has warned of a dramatic crash in kangaroo numbers because commercial culling is killing off the biggest and most healthy animals. Wildlife gene researcher claims legal culling of millions of kangaroos each year leaves only smaller, weaker animals to reproduce - causing a constant erosion of the genetic pool."
"And he says the annual quota of kangaroos to be killed - more than 3.7 million in 1996 - is based on false information about their numbers." Dr Ian Gunn said "The evidence is indisputable. If left to continue, (it) has the potential to result in reduced genetic viability, lower reproductive efficiency and a radical reduction in the populations density below sustainable numbers in certain regions "
Dr Gunn says " ..one obvious result of years of shooting the largest animals will be a reduction in the overall size of the animals. Removing the dominant males who did most of the breeding would allow less healthy males to become the main source of the genes. Really we don't know, no-one knows, the effect of killing a high percentage of the larger males or females of the population."
'FROM CONSERVATION TO EXPLOITATION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA'
Doug Reilly ( Macropod expert Chinaman Creek Environmental Research Station SA)
"In any wild animal, if you disrupt in a short period of time the normal reproduction processes that have evolved over tens of thousands of years you are in danger of putting the species at risk. Precedents have been set in other parts of the world where large populations of a species (seals, bison,wolves) have faced extinction after widespread and destructive 'culling' programs. Many of these species suffered incursion of exotic bacterias and viruses when their populations contained a critical and unsustainable gene pool."
PROFESSOR DAVID CONOVER STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
(Science magazine SMH July 8, 2002)
FISH THROWM BACK MEANS SMALL FRY
Professor Conover says that size is genetically controlled, as well as being associated with age. "We need to pay more attention to what the evolutionary impacts are. We just can't look at the ecological effect of harvesting. We have to add the Darwinian effect." (Darwin's theory of natural selection)
Dr Peter Hale
Queensland University, states that inappropriate and destructive 'culling' practices have no bearing on genetic loss or threats to kangaroo populations. But his research does not take into consideration emerging wildlife diseases, caused by viruses that are totally new to science . Professor John Mac Kenzie, University of Queensland said, " It is important scientists have the resources to look for agents that cause all major outbreaks of disease in Australia, such as kangaroo blindness and pilchard kills." The ability of kangaroos to adapt to climate change and disease threats is ignored by Hale. Floods follow drought and kangaroos face the terrible choroid blindness disease as well as other ignored bacterias and viruses. AWPC does not accept Hales' assurances nor do several other scientists that there is no loss to the gene pool by the present artificial manipulation of kangaroo populations and inappropriate 'culling practices.
But Environment Australia's Jonathan Miller A/g Assistant Sec Wildlife Australia 29 September 2002 supports Hale:
" In regard to the genetic impact of kangaroo harvesting there is currently no information coming from the harvest data collected by the States that indicates that commercial harvesting has had any deleterious impacts on the genetic fitness of kangaroo populations. However, kangaroo management plans allow for adaptive management, and should such information arise, changes to harvesting procedures could be implemented in response."
We condemn their lack of concern and what if Peter Hale and Environment Australia are wrong? The survival of kangaroos is being used as a political football.
Further, NPWS totally ignores the inherent cruelty to kangaroos, in-pouch and ex-pouch joeys…
Where is the implementation of the Precautionary Principle or is the NSW NPWS merely the marketing arm of the kangaroo industry? If so, perhaps an overt declaration to the general community would be appropriate.
Do we wait to see if there is a threat and then act, hoping it will not be too late?
Do we wait to see if the gene pool has been depleted or that kangaroos populations crash beyond the point of no return? Wake up please NPWS to the enormous threats to kangaroo populations.
AUSTRALIA'S SHAME
There are almost no areas left where kangaroos are safe from shooters. Nothing has changed since 1982.
92% of NSW has been drought declared. and the NSW NPWS has set a commercial kill for 2003 of 2,107,620 kangaroos with a Proposed special quota of another 134,000 kangaroos for farmers. This so-called non-commercial kill becomes a commercial kill which is then part of the quota. How mischievous!
LEAVING THE YOUNG RECRUITS
Dr Stuart Cairns
"All of Mulyungarie is easily accessible to a professional shooter, enabling him to cull predominantly mature males. This means that the Mootooroo Pastoral Company is turning the 'roo into something resembling a domestic animal, culling any surplus males and topping up each night with a few does. It is the nearest thing to sustainable farming in Australia. Essentially, they are lifting the food resource base for new recruits - animals just leaving the pouch and the young at foot. It is certainly a sustainable harvest"
TOTAL GRAZING PRESSURE DAMAGE BY KANGAROOS EXAGGERATED BY UP TO 500%
Professor Gordon Grigg
The damage done on grazing lands by kangaroos has been overestimated by up to 500%. "This would mean that kangaroos are a much smaller component of the total grazing pressure than is generally accepted. The hope of getting a significant improvement in wool production by pest control of kangaroos is probably doomed to failure." Grigg says that kangaroos should be regarded as a resource.
GLOVE BOX GUIDE TO KANGAROOS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN THE MURRAY - DARLING BASIN
Translated, this means finding more and better ways to kill kangaroos
Dr Steve Mc Leod
'Culling during drought, when the need seems greatest from a pastoral perspective, may be less beneficial in the long run than culling in the immediate post-drought period. Culling during drought simply removes animals that would die in any event and, paradoxically, favors survival of those remaining. Culling in the immediate post-drought period, when the population is beginning to rebuild from a low base and food is plentiful (so that culled animals represent a genuine reduction in the populations) will have longer lasting effects." Page. 18
' In most situations, establishment of self -mustering yards is probably the best way to ensure that waters can be closed to kangaroos when required.' Page. 17
''The impact of harvesting or culling on kangaroo density depends greatly on the ratio of males to females taken. If only males are taken, little if any long term reduction in density will result from harvest rates that would rapidly lead to extinction if the harvest were balanced. Conversely, a harvest that is strongly biased towards females will achieve a much greater reduction in density than would otherwise occur. Careful selection of the animals targeted may thus make a substantial difference to the overall result achieved." Pages. 17 & 18
'When animals are taken under shoot and let lie permits, greater opportunity exists for selective harvesting. Carefully targeted shooting under these conditions could be expected to have much greater impact in the long run than hasty, indiscriminate culling" Page 18
MANAGING KANGAROOS IN THE MURRAY - DARLING BASIN SEPTEMBER 2002
Ron Hacker, Steve Mc Leod, John Durhan, Brigitte Tenhumberg and Udai Pradhan
Scenarios for kangaroo killing
'A major outcome of this collaboration was the Committee's decision to recommend that additional funding be provided to support both a sub-project related to the effects of kangaroo harvesting on population genetics and the production of an expanded range of publications." Page 3
" A spatial model of kangaroos harvesting was developed to examine the likely distribution of the commercial harvest effort over the landscape. The model assumes that the level of profit required by a harvester determines the density at which harvesting will cease in a given area under specified assumptions regarding operating costs and commodity price.." page 7
" The best overall combination was an annual harvest rate of 10% male only harvesting. The preferred options for the kangaroo industry were also strongly male biased. The best overall combination was male-only harvesting at an annual rate of 40%. Pastoralists' preferred options, in contrast, were characterised by harvest rates greater than 30% made up of at least 30% females. The best overall combination was an annual harvest rate of 90% made up of 70% females". Page 9
The above would cause the extinction of the species.
The above reveals a hatred of and contempt for kangaroos which is deeply imbedded in the Australian psyche . The pastoralists want kangaroos dead. These are OUR taxes at work…on how to kill off kangaroos in Australia. The Rural Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) and other agricultural bodies have been subsidising this type of research for many years. The Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia (KIAA) works hand in hand with Australian scientists such as Grigg, Mc Leod, Hacker, Tenhumberg, Pople, Cairns, Hale, Pradhan, Druhan, Archer, Hopwood etc
Maryland Wilson
President
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