This analysis reports the actual number of Grey Kangaroos killed for commercial gain in Victoria in the first nine months of 2024.

The full year commercial quota in 2024 in Victoria is 155,650. The Nature Knowledge Channel’s full year forecast for Victoria in 2024 is now 72,800. (was 69,900) (the 2023 actual was 72,232).

The actual take against original quota for 2024 is as follows:

• Actual first 9 months 2024 – 58,481 Kangaroos (that is 22,536 in Quarter 3);  
• Quota first 9 months 2024 – 121,000 Kangaroos;
• Shortfall of Kangaroos killed for commercial gain for the first 9 months of 2024 was 62,519 Kangaroos; and
• Actual for 9 months at 48 per cent of quota for the period and at 37.5 per cent against original full year quota.

Note: Original quotas have been used above for comparison (rather than revised quotas) because the Victorian Government’s population estimates for 2023 set the quotas for 2024. Not meeting quotas is a sign that population estimates are far too high.

Actual take against commercial quota (per cent):

• 2023 – 43 per cent;
• 2022 – 57 per cent;
• 2021 – 65 per cent;
• 2020 – 80 per cent; and
• 2019 – 56 per cent (from October 1 to year end, see note below).

Actual take against commercial quota (SHORTFALL against quota – number of Kangaroos):

• 2023 – 94,518;
• 2022 – 59,504;
• 2021 – 33,446;
• 2020 – 11,836; and
• 2019 – 6,255.

We should note that the commercial quota for 2024 was revised down to 142,350 Grey Kangaroos in July 2024, a further downward revision occurred in September 2024 to 111,575 (in their Quarter 3 report the Victorian Government states ‘removing all Quarter 4 allocations’). The Victorian Government also states that ‘where the quota is not fully allocated it can be carried over into the following quarter’.

There were 113 shooters commercially exploiting Kangaroos in Victoria in the first half of 2024. In Quarter 3 the number of licensed Kangaroo shooters was 123 of which, 99, received allocations, 61 of which were shooting in the Central and Lower Wimmera shooting zones. In 2024 there are 7 shooting zones, mergers of zones planned from 2025 reduce that to 5 shooting zones.

In the first 6 months of 2024, the Central and the Lower Wimmera shooting zones, at 24,538 Kangaroos, accounted for 68 per cent of all Kangaroos killed for commercial gain in Victoria. In Quarter 3 the Central and the Lower Wimmera shooting zones again led the way in the number of Kangaroos killed for commercial gain at 15,281 (68 per cent) of a total actual for all Victoria of 22,536.  Concerningly, these two zones are  being merged with zones with low levels of actual take as from January 2025 and vanish, and that makes ongoing comparisons far more difficult.

Total number of females killed for commercial gain in the first 9 months of 2024 was 19,202 or 33 per cent of total commercial take. In the first 6 months of 2024 the number of female Kangaroos killed for commercial gain was 11,677 or 32.5 per cent of total commercial take.

Total number of at foot joeys killed for commercial gain in the first 9 months of 2024 was 16,672 (beaten to death). 88 per cent of the female Kangaroos killed for commercial gain in Quarter 3 also had an at-foot joey killed. In the first 6 months of 2024 the number of at-foot joeys killed was 10,026. We assume from the wording in the data reports that pouch-dependent joeys are omitted from the data.

These young at-foot Kangaroos (approximately to 15 months old) are killed by blunt force trauma (hit with the back of an axe and so on) and bodies are discarded. Adding joeys to the 2024 actual kill during the first 9 months of 2024 raises the total number of Kangaroos killed to 75,153. That is, at foot joeys were 22 per cent of all the Kangaroos killed in Victoria for commercial gain in the first 9 months of 2024, these animals are the next generation of Grey Kangaroos in Victoria.

The total number of Western Grey Kangaroos killed for commercial gain in the first 9 months of 2024 was 1,266, just 2 per cent of all the adult Kangaroos killed. Western Victoria is an ‘overlap zone’ for Western and Eastern Grey Kangaroos. Our view is that Western Grey Kangaroos are being exterminated in Victoria, just as Eastern Grey Kangaroos are being exterminated in South Australia.

Sadly the Quarter 3 government report that gives the actuals appears to have a serious error, corrected in this analysis.

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Western Victoria

The story for the Lower Wimmera shooting zone, one of the two most impacted shooting zones since the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos was introduced to Victoria is as follows:

• The original commercial quota for Lower Wimmera to end September 2024 was 30,000 - to end September the actual was 16,077 - around 53 per cent of quota. In 2024 the original full year commercial quota was 39,000 (since revised down to 28,600 with quota allocation in the Lower Wimmera for Q4 now set at ZERO).
• In 2023 the full year commercial quota for Lower Wimmera was 41,000, actual take was 19,463, that is 47 percent of quota.
• Going back to 2022 the story for the Lower Wimmera was this - the commercial quota was 30,550. The actual commercial take was 18,671. That is 61 per cent of quota. This was the year that the wheels began to fall off with allocation adjusted down by 7,640.
• In 2021 the commercial quota was 25,850 revised down to 22,450, actual commercial take was 19,420. Lower Wimmera had the highest commercial quota of any zone in that year.

The story for the other two shooting zones in Western Victoria is grim:

• For the Upper Wimmera shooting zone in 2024 the original commercial quota is 17,800, actual take to end of September was 2,659. Q4 commercial quota for this shooting zone also set to ZERO. The use of ATCWs in this zone is also very low. The actual full year take for this zone in 2023 was just 4134. Given our own investigations and surveys in the far west of Victoria, Kangaroo populations have declined significantly as the actuals indicate.
• Kangaroo populations in the Mallee shooting zone have collapsed due to long term over shooting.

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All Australia

As Kangaroo populations continue their decline, for all Australia, the decline in actual take against quota (and divergence of) is described in this graph:

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Out the window

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We may well ask what happened to these Victorian Government guidelines?

Female Kangaroos with obvious young

Conditions of Authorisation under section 28A of the Wildlife Act 1975, to hunt, take, destroy, possess, dispose of and sell Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Western Grey Kangaroos in accordance with the approved Victorian Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2021-2023.

The conditions required to comply with an authorisation issued under section 28A of the Wildlife Act 1975, to hunt, take, destroy, possess, dispose of and sell Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Western Grey Kangaroos in accordance with the approved Victorian Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2021-2023.

Number 7 of 22 conditions states: Kangaroos with obvious dependent young must not be shot.

Not viable (until 2014 that is)

"Commercial use of culled Kangaroos was undertaken in Victoria in the 1980s to test the viability of a Kangaroo industry in this state. It did not prove to be viable. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) concludes that the industry failed at that time because of the low numbers of Kangaroos available, and the distances to be travelled between properties and points of processing, which made it uneconomic for the industry to continue. Commercial utilisation of Kangaroos has not been permitted in Victoria since that time". Parliament of Victoria - Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Inquiry into the Utilisation of Victorian Native Flora and Fauna June 2000 - No 30 Session 1999/2000 VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT PRINTER 2000

No increase

Speaking about the KPFT, Peter Walsh, the former Victorian Agriculture Minister stated:

“It will not mean any increase in the wildlife control permits at all, it is just utilising the waste that is there from the current controls".

Whoops, a huge increase

“On balance, it appears that the behaviour of some KPFT shooters, who have an interest in maximising numbers controlled, is having some influence on the number of Kangaroos landholders are requesting to control. As a result, numbers approved for control have increased under the trial. This may not only compromise the aim of reducing waste, but could also threaten the sustainability of Kangaroo populations in future years if an expectation of a steady supply of carcasses was created. Given that Kangaroo populations vary, a program to process carcasses within the ATCW system cannot guarantee the steady supply that is preferable to shooters and processors”. Kangaroo Pet Food Trial Evaluation, DEWLP, 2017

The initially secret DELWP report Kangaroo Pet Food Trial Evaluation stated that:

“However there has been a disproportionate increase in the number of Kangaroos approved for control in trial areas, compared to non-trial areas since the commencement of the trial. Over the period of the trial the average number of Kangaroos approved for control in trial areas was nearly 250 per cent higher than the long-term average. The deviation from the long-term average is much larger in trial areas than in non-trial areas. This is primarily due to KPFT authorisations being issued, on average for larger numbers of Kangaroos than type 1 ATCWs”.

Lily D’Ambrosio, a former Victorian Labor Government Environment Minister, went on to make exactly the same claim (2015), 'there would be no increase'. In 2016 claiming:

“The trial has received positive support from participating landowners and the pet food industry, helping to reduce waste by processing more than 30,000 Kangaroos for pet food and creating jobs for regional Victoria".

This is what they actually did:

Number of Kangaroos targeted in Victoria since 2010 (ATCWs and Commercial permits combined).

• 2010 – 39,559
• 2011 – 34,721
• 2012 – 45,717
• 2013 – 75,139
• 2014 – 84,100 - Pet food trial introduced
• 2015 – 135,887
• 2016 – 169,544 - Pet food trial expanded
• 2017 – 189,086
• 2018 – 168,992

Numbers below Grey Kangaroos only. Excludes Red Kangaroo from here on.

• 2019 – 136,502 - Full commercial trade introduced late 2019
• 2020 - 137,800 (Catastrophic fires destroyed wildlife populations and the world donates to help save them)
• 2021 - 191,200 (Victorian Government claims Kangaroo population increase of 41 per cent)
• 2022 - 185,850
• 2023 - 236,350 – (Victorian Government claim yet another significant increase in the population of Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos, this time 24 per cent)
• 2024 – 236,350 (plan) – quota based on numbers derived from 2022 population survey which claimed a 24 per cent increase, that on top of a 41 per cent increase claimed from the previous survey.

NOTE: We do not know the total actual outcome because ATCW permits, once issued, have no reporting requirement from permit holders regarding actual outcome.

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Hunting regulations and codes

Where and when you may use firearms (Firearm safety code 2011)

Before you do any shooting, whether with a firearm or air gun, you need to know when and where it can be safely and lawfully used.

You should take steps to ensure that your shooting does not endanger property or frighten, annoy or put neighbours at risk. Telling your neighbours about what you are doing is always a good first step.

“The Code is a vital tool that has been developed in the interests of community safety and recreational shooting. I strongly encourage Victorian shooters to recognise the Code’s importance and actively practice the ten basic rules. In this regard, shooters will be able to continue enjoying their sport safely while avoiding endangering the welfare of others”. The Honourable Peter Ryan MLA’ Deputy Premier of Victoria

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