“It is also prudent to consult with neighbours, as exclusion of Macropods from your property may mean increased impacts on theirs. You may be able to agree to a communal approach, allowing you to share the cost of building a fence or to consider fencing a cluster of adjacent properties. A landscape scale approach may also be useful when considering other supplementary options to control Macropods” Victorian Government Department of Environment

What was so shocking about our visit to Cape Schanck and region was the extent and scale of wildlife exclusion fencing, shockingly this wildlife proof fencing is promoted by the Victorian Government’s Department of Environment. What these fences do is to exclude wildlife from more and more and more places, entrapping some animals as new fences are constructed. Permits are issues so the wildlife can be shot.

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Claims from government include significantly exaggerated population estimates on which the permissions to kill wildlife are based. This in turn can only mean one thing, over time, the total extermination of wildlife populations in the region.

One such case, and permits to kill them all have been issued, of several hundred trapped Kangaroos adjacent to the local NationalPark is causing great anxiety and distress among the locals. As usual it is impossible to get a straight answer from the government staff responsible for these heinous acts of cruelty and pointless eradication of Australian wildlife.

While the government and thoughtless land holders will claim that Kangaroos are eating ‘their’ grass, many properties are not farmed in any commercial sense of that word, the grasses, most introduced from other countries and not what Kangaroos choose to eat, are waist high and being cut because of fire risk.

In Victoria Kangaroos and Wallabies are not safe in National and State Parks and other public lands, so they have no place of safety.

Whatever the Victorian Government likes to pretend, Kangaroo species in Victoria come under more and more pressure as each year passes. The introduction of a commercial trade in wildlife in Victoria has tripled that pressure for Kangaroos and has done so literally overnight.

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The issues created by the commercial trade in wildlife and the horrors associated with it are starkly revealed by the New South Wales Government Inquiry into the health and wellbeing of kangaroos and other macropods in New South Wales. I suggest you read the report (the draft of which was heavily amended by the Coalition Government and Labor) as well as reading the transcripts and submissions.

In Victoria the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos includes the following facts:

• Much of the commercial killing is occurring on land that is not farmed – Dunkeld is a classic example of this; and
• The killing rate of Kangaroo species subject to commercial exploitation has increased fivefold in Victoria since the introduction of the KPFT in 2014 – this is completely unsustainable.

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Claims that for 2021 that the population of Grey Kangaroos in the state had increased by 41 per cent are not credible, nor possible.

Commercial permits in Victoria for killing Kangaroos - theVictorian Government’s own authorisation to shooters based on which commercial wildlife licenses are issued, 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  clearly states that:

“Kangaroos with obvious dependent young must not be shot”. 

The last figures I have from DELWP, which are recent show that 30 per cent of the Kangaroos killed for commercial purposes are now female and in a recent period 14,000 females have been killed resulting in the death of 13,800 joeys (so this destroys three generations of Kangaroos in one go, how is this sustainable?). This also says a great deal about the standards of governance in Victoria, total lack of any compliance and action resulting in clear breaches of the regulations.

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For the government to suggest what is done to Kangaroos is humane is nonsense, the global Internet is full of the most heinous images of commercial and non-commercial shooters abusing Kangaroos and these images are available to governments around the world, some of which are now taking action to ban Kangaroo products, in the case of the United States, this is occurring purely on grounds of EXTREME cruelty.

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Each state has precisely the same issues. My view is that South Australia is the worst of an extremely bad bunch when it comes to the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos, the state also has a catastrophic record of native species loss and endangerment.

My view is that there are at least three species in the Macropod family that are being exploited commercially that should be on the threatened species list, these are from South Australia, the Sooty Kangaroo and Tammar Wallaby from Kangaroo Island and the Forester Kangaroo from Tasmania. To go after these species commercially demonstrates just how shockingly poor the standards are in terms of safeguarding the future of Australian wildlife.

We all live in this world and we should have the basic sense to look after it.

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