image: Matt Jarrett, Clover's Run Wildlife Sanctuary
KANGAROOS ARE IN TROUBLE
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 LETTERWE 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. OPEN LETTERWE 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:
image: Paul Harris
- Loss of habitat, urban development, agricultural practices and continuing industrial-scale slaughter eliminates 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 eight 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]
- Government survey data and commercial shooting statistics illustrate declining populations and landscapes now significantly depleted of kangaroos. [10]
image:Ray Drew Photography
- Shooting occurs away from scrutiny and in darkness, when non-lethal 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. [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” of pouch young. [14]
- 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]
image:Lindsay Moller Productions
- 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 on 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]
image:Paul Harris
|
image:Ray Drew Photography
|
image:Lindsay Moller Productions
|
SIGNATORIES
