In December 2023, following the release of the Victorian Government report giving Kangaroo population estimates and the resulting kill quotas, in my analysis of the time, I asked the following question:

Why has the Victorian Government gone against their own policy of shifting their mitigation permits, in the case of Victoria these are called ATCWs, over to commercial? The government plans for 2024 show the opposite, with an increase in ATCW targeted animals, from 69,600 in 2023 to 80,700 in 2024 and a decline in commercially targeted animals from 166,750 in 2023 to 155,650 in 2024.

Given the revelations from the Victorian Government in November 2024 that ‘public land managers’ can convert Authority To Control Wildlife Permits (ATCWs) to commercial permits, the most likely answer to my own question is that switching to increase the number of ATCWs would give the government’s ‘public land managers’ greater scope to introduce the killing of Kangaroo species for commercial gain into national and state parks and other public lands. It would appear from government comments, commercial exploitation on public lands, commenced in 2024.

If this is the case, we need to find out just how many animals were taken from public lands for commercial gain in 2024.

“From January 2025, a further 10 LGA’s will be included in the Exclusion Zone. These are Brimbank, Casey, Cardinia, Hobson Bay, Hume, Mornington, Melton, Nillumbik, Whittlesea, and Wyndham”.  Victorian Government

If this turns out to be the case, are and will the switched permits – ATCW to commercial – be, and continue to be, included in the actual commercial data, currently published in Victoria on quarterly basis? We should note that the actual kill from commercial quota is tracked while the actual kill resulting from issued ATCW permits is not, and as a result the outcome is unknown.

This raises a second question, given the exclusion of much of the Melbourne urban area from a commercial shooting zone, if ATCWs are issued for public lands in Melbourne (and they will be) does this allow for commercial exploitation to continue within the Melbourne urban area by converting ATCWs into commercial permits? Given the recent Victorian Government statement that:

“All Kangaroo control on public land currently occurs through ATCW permits which are issued to the relevant ‘public land manager’. ‘Public land managers’ can choose to instead access the KHP as a direct replacement to ATCW control under the Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2024-2028”.  

The third question arising, does the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos in national and state parks introduce a third species, the Red Kangaroo, to commercial exploitation. The Red Kangaroo has been targeted in large numbers in the public lands where the protected species still exists in Victoria.

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NOTE: 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. The largest reductions in quota occurring in the Central and Lower Wimmera shooting zones, which have been heavily overexploited since 2019 / 2014 respectively.

Meanwhile the Victorian Government claims:

“To ensure the sustainability of our Kangaroo populations and monitor the impact of harvesting, the Victorian Government has deliberately taken a conservative approach to the commercial harvesting of Kangaroos. Victoria is committed to ensuring that no more than 10 per cent of our Kangaroo population is taken annually across both the ATCW system and the KHP”.

There is little or no evidence to suggest this claim is correct. What actually happened tells a very different story.

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