image: Matt Jarrett, Clover's Run Wildlife Sanctuary

Organisations are joining scientists and academics with their voice of concern about the shooting of kangaroos - the largest commercial slaughter of terrestrial wildlife on the planet.
​

OPEN LETTER

WE THE UNDERSIGNED URGE THE PUBLIC, LAWMAKERS & DECISION-MAKERS TO CONSIDER THE CONSERVATION, ANIMAL WELFARE AND HUMAN HEALTH RISKS CAUSED BY THE COMMERCIAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL SHOOTING OF KANGAROOS

We are concerned that claims of health, sustainability and humaneness used to promote continuation and expansion of shooting kangaroos are industry-biased and can be scientifically disproven.
​
​We believe that scientific evidence demonstrates that the slaughter of kangaroos, ​the ​largest commercial killing of land-based wildlife on the planet, is putting at high risk kangaroo populations and people’s health, and causes profound suffering to kangaroos and their young.

SPECIFIC AREAS OF CONCERN INCLUDE:​

• Loss of habitat, urban development, agricultural practices and continuing industrial-scale slaughter eliminate kangaroos across vast regions where historical records described them as once widespread and abundant. 

​

• Kangaroos grow and breed slowly and have high juvenile mortality. For example, a Grey Kangaroo doe can produce up to 8 independent joeys in her lifetime,[1],[2] with just two likely to survive to independence.[3]

​

• Maximum wild population growth rates average ~10% in optimal conditions,[4] with annual declines of up to 60% during drought recorded.[5],[6],[7] It is biologically impossible for kangaroo populations to increase rapidly.

​

• Shooting quotas of 15-20% or more[8]  of population estimates exceed actual kangaroo population growth rates. 

​

• Analysis shows critically flawed kangaroo survey methodologies systematically inflate population estimates from which commercial shooting quotas are then over-allocated.[9]​

 

• Consideration of commercial shooting impacts on kangaroo populations has never included millions of kangaroos additionally shot by landowners and illegal shooting. Other major mortality factors are also ignored.

​

• Government survey data and commercial shooting statistics illustrate declining populations and landscapes now significantly depleted of kangaroos.[10]

• Shooting occurs away from any scrutiny and in darkness when nonlethal shots are inevitable, often causing horrific injuries.
  
  
• Evidence suggests 4-40%[11],[12] commercially shot animals are not shot directly in the brain but in the neck or body.  This equates to between 65,284-652,839 animals mis-shot in 2015 [for example].[13]
  
  
• Unknown further numbers of mis-shot kangaroos are left to die in the field by commercial and non-commercial shooters.
  ​
• The national Code of Practice requires shooters to shoot at-foot joeys, and decapitate or “crush the skull and destroy the brain”[14] of pouch young.
  
  
• Research confirms most dependent at-foot joeys are left in the field[15] to suffer exposure, starvation, or predation, and that pouch joeys’ heads are generally swung against vehicles.
  
  
• Joeys killed or left to die are not recorded. Around 8 million dependent joeys are estimated to have died due to commercial shooting in the period 2000-2009.[16] 
  
  
• Over 110,000 joeys died from commercial shooting alone in 2015 based on reported figures. [17] 

• ​75% of emerging human pathogens originate in wildlife.[18]
  
  
• Kangaroo is a wild bush meat sold in supermarkets and restaurants. It is not tested[19] for the many human-harming pathogens it harbours.[20]

​

• Wild kangaroos are shot and butchered in the field without supervision.
  
  
• They are transported on unrefrigerated open trucks exposed to dust and flies and frequently high ambient temperatures.
  ​
• There have been repeated findings of contaminated kangaroo meat over many years.[21] 
  
  
• In 2014 Russia renewed its ban kangaroo meat imports for a third time due to pathogenic contamination.[22],[23]
  ​
• Acetic acid is routinely used to cleanse the meat of systemic contamination.[24],[25]

SIGNATORIES

ENDNOTES

[1] Dawson,T (2012) Kangaroos: Biology of the Largest Marsupials Cornell University Press. Ithaca, US Based on Table 6.1
[2] Bilton, A & Croft, D (2004) Lifetime Reproductive Success in a Population of Female Red Kangaroos Macropus Rufus in the Sheep Rangelands of Western New South Wales: Environmental Effects and Population Dynamics Australian Mammalogy 26: 45-60
[3] Arnold GW et al (1991)  Population ecology of western grey kangaroos in a remnant of Wandoo Woodland at Bakers Hill, southern Western Australia  Wildlife Research 18(5) 561-575, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne
[4] Arnold et al op cit. *Arnold’s grey kangaroo population growth rates equate to x7.86% pa over 4 years, and then x8.47% pa over a subsequent 6 years. Red Kangaroos are slightly higher. 
[5] Robertson G (1986) The Mortality of Kangaroos in Drought Australian Wildlife Research 13(3) 349 – 354 
[6] Newsome AE, Stephens DR, Shipway AK (1967) Effect of a long drought on the abundance of Red Kangaroos in central Australia CSIRO Wildlife Rescue 12: 1-8
[7] Caughley, G , Grigg, GG, Smith L. (1985). The effect of drought on kangaroo populations. Journal of Wildlife Management 49: 679-685
[8] State Kangaroo Management Plans: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/trading/commercial/management-plans
[9] Cairns, S et al A report to the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change on the consultancy: ‘Kangaroo Monitoring: Hunter and Central Tablelands Commercial Harvest Zones Design and Analysis of Helicopter Survey (2009); Cairns S & Bearup D A report to the NSW OEH on the consultancy: Design and analysis of helicopter Surveys of kangaroo populations in the Central tablelands North & South management zones (2012); See also  transect locations in western NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, and Mjadwesch, R (2013) Letter to NSW Scientific Committee http://bit.ly/KangaroosAtRisk_Mjadwesch2003_NSWSC
[10] Mjadwesch op cit
[11] RSPCA Australia (2002) A Survey of the Extent of Compliance with the Requirements of the Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos http://www.environment.gov.au/node/16659
[12] Ben‐Ami, D et al The welfare ethics of the commercial killing of free-ranging kangaroos: an evaluation of the benefits and costs of the industry (2014). http://bit.ly/2z03uIc  Explanation of methodologies: http://bit.ly/2ByJ4eX
[13] Australian Government Kangaroo and wallaby population, quota and harvest statistics 2015 (2016 not available) http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/natives/wild-harvest
[14] Australian Government National Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos and Wallabies for Commercial Purposes [and for Non-Commercial Purposes] http://bit.ly/1zEeFT2
[15] McLeod, S and Sharp, T Improving the humaneness of commercial kangaroo harvesting 2014 Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation http://www.agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/13-116.pdf
[16] Ben-Ami et al op cit
[17] Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, Population, quota and harvest statistics, 2015. http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/d3f58a89-4fdf-43ca-8763-bbfd6048c303/files/kangaroo-statistics-new.pdf Joeys calculated using standard constants for fecundity (Dawson 2012) and survivorship (Arnold (1991), Banks (2002) See Mjadwesch 2011  http://www.kangaroosatrisk.net/2-biology--population-ecology.html))
[18] Taylor, LH et al Risk factors for human disease emergence Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Lon B 2001 356 983-989 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11829994_Risk_Factors_for_Human_Disease_Emergence
[19] Community Affairs Senate Committee, Population Health, QoN196 (Senator Rhiannon), Supplementary Budget Estimates 2012-13, 20 Nov 2012, Australian Senate http://bit.ly/2ACunD8 
[20] Ladds, P Pathology of Macropods [ from Pathology of Australian Native Wildlife (Ladds 2009)] Australian Registry of Wildllife Health, Taronga Conservation Society Australia http://bit.ly/2BIXRDX   
[21] Rural, Regional Affairs & Transport Legislation Senate Committee, Department of Agriculture, Exports Division, Q104 (Senator Lee Rhiannon), Supplementary Budget Estimates May 2017, Australian Senate. http://bit.ly/KangaroosAtRisk_EUContamination2013-15
[22] Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitory Surveillance news (25 July 2013) The Rosselkhoznadzor Detained a Kangaroo Meat Consignment of a Questionable Quality http://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps/news/7137.html?_language=en
[23] Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Exports Division, Q60 (Senator Rhiannon), Additional Budget Estimates Feb 2015, Australian Senate http://www.kangaroosatrisk.org/uploads/1/0/8/3/10831721/2015feb_rhiannon_rrat_exports_contaminationinaust_russia_q60.pdf
[24] Macro Investments (Macro Meats) Letter to shooters (19 May 2012) http://www.kangaroosatrisk.org/uploads/1/0/8/3/10831721/20120819_macroletter_aceticacid.png 
[25] Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Food Division, Q232 (Senator Heffernan), Supplementary Budget Estimates Oct 2012, Australian Senate http://www.kangaroosatrisk.org/uploads/1/0/8/3/10831721/2012oct_heffernan_rrat_agric_fooddiv_acetic.pdf
​