A new Kangaroo population survey is due in 2024.

Since 2014, when the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos was introduced in Victoria, there have been four Victorian Government Kangaroo population surveys.

NOTE: Multiplier analysis gives the multiplication number for the raw count that gives the population estimate. That number is shown in brackets and in bold.

The results were as follows:

‍

2022 survey

• 5,947 Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 2,363,850 (24 per cent increase in population) (x398); and
• 140 Red Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 54,000 (x385).

Climate change impact in period – serious flooding.

‍

2020 survey

• 6,268 Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 1,912,000 (41 per cent increase in population) (x305); and
• 102 Red Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 30,000 (x294).

Climate change impact in period – most serious wildfires known.

‍

2018 survey

• 4,707 Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 1,381,000 (x293); and
• 91 Red Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 44,000 (x483).

‍

2017 survey (shorter transects)

• 2,607 Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 1,429,000 (x548); and
• 23 Red Kangaroos resulting in a population estimate of 13,000 (x565).

In 2017 the Victorian Government issued permits to kill 2,187 more Red Kangaroos than their entire state population estimate for that year.

Note: Significant change to transects between the 2017 and 2018 surveys. As of I January 2025 the Victorian shooting zones will be ‘rezoned’, from 7 zones to 5 zones.

‍

Central shooting zone

• 2017 – 1,026
• 2018 – 722
• 2020 – 2,058
• 2022 – 1,989

Total counted – 5,795

‍

Gippsland shooting zone

• 2017 – 288
• 2018 – 407
• 2020 – 685
• 2022 – 482

Total counted – 1,862

‍

Lower Wimmera shooting zone

• 2017 – 606
• 2018 – 1,261
• 2020 – 1,228
• 2022 – 1,239

Total counted – 4,334

‍

Mallee shooting zone

• 2017 – 75
• 2018 – 157
• 2020 – 125
• 2022 – 146

Total counted - 503

‍

North East shooting zone

• 2017 – 419
• 2018 – 1,102
• 2020 – 879
• 2022 – 1,059

Total counted – 3,459

‍

Otway shooting zone

• 2017 – 72
• 2018 – 718
• 2020 – 831
• 2022 – 515

Total counted – 2,136

‍

Upper Wimmera shooting zone

• 2017 – 122
• 2018 – 340
• 2020 – 462
• 2022 – 518

Total counted – 1,442

‍

All shooting zones

• Total Kangaroos counted all four surveys – 19,528 (excludes Red Kangaroo)
• Equals populations estimate all four survey years – 7,085,850 (excludes Red Kangaroo).

NOTE: For every Kangaroo counted (total all four surveys) was multiplied by x363 to estimate the state’s Kangaroo population.

NOTE: Raw count numbers have been adjusted by correction factors, now called detection probabilities, and modelling is based on the 'corrected' number, not the raw data. This also inflates the population estimate further.

NOTE: In responses to Questions in Parliament from MP Georgie Purcell (AJP) in July 2024, Steve Dimopoulos, Victoria’s current Environment Minister, responded thus:

“The new modelling approach adopted for the KHMP 2024-2028 will estimate population size at a finer scale.

For the Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan, the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research used spatial data on tree densities across Victoria to exclude forested areas (other than mallee forest types) from the seven harvest zones. However, patches of forested habitat that were less than or equal to 100 hectares in size were retained in the survey area. Patches of forested habitat include fragments of forest existing as small islands in larger areas of treeless or lightly timbered vegetation. The exclusion of these forested patches from the survey area is therefore not considered necessary.

Local government areas (LGAs) that were entirely, or mostly, within highly urbanised parts of metropolitan Melbourne were excluded from survey. This is due to the likely very low abundance of Kangaroos in most of these areas, and the regulatory and practical difficulties inherent in conducting aerial surveys at low altitude over urban areas. Urban-fringe LGAs containing significant rural or semi-rural land, such as Wyndham, Hume, Nillumbik and Casey, were included, as these LGAs are known to support significant populations of Eastern Grey Kangaroos.

Since 2020, a new and improved land use spatial layer became available allowing more accurate mapping of land use types. This layer was used in the development of a new modelling approach, which will allow regional town centres and other areas of non-kangaroo habitat to be excluded from survey and populations estimates. The new modelling approach underpins the KHMP 2024-2028”.

Our view on this is as follows, the previous Kangaroo population surveys and modelling conducted in Victoria were relatively crude and extrapolated, despite previous denials, Kangaroo populations across large parts of Victoria where it was not possible for Kangaroos to live.

Changes in methodology, the counting is important, adding further to the confusion. If you look at the previous survey results, and I am stating the obvious, the more Kangaroos they count, although a very small number, the higher the population goes.

What is particularly concerning is that at the date of writing, the actual data reports for Quarter1 and Quarter 2 in 2024 had still not been published, they are long overdue. So we do not know what happened in relation to the extent of the commercial kill to date in 2024.

Our view is that the finer scale analysis referred to above will likely result in greater efforts to count more Kangaroos during the 2024 survey, because if that does not happen, the government will find the population estimates, on which its mass killing efforts and marketing spin are based, will fall through the floor.

They will not allow that to happen.

NOTE: When commercial shooters move into an area, they shoot as many Kangaroos as they can, not ten per cent but sometimes nearly all of them. This is the typical pattern and is not sustainable.

‍

Victorian Government’s Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2024-2028

The Commonwealth Government demonstrates its concern about what is happening to Kangaroo populations in Victoria by not signing the Victorian Government’s Kangaroo Harvest Management Plan 2024-2028. Following a public ‘consultation’, the plan was sent by Victoria to Canberra in December 2023 and should have been approved before the beginning of 2024. That the plan was not approved means that Kangaroo exports from Victoria would be illegal until the plan is signed off. The Victorian Government has maintained a silence about this matter and it is not hard to understand why. Even in a national landscape of hyper-inflated Kangaroo population estimates and the endless nonsense about exploding populations, Victoria has been singled out for special attention. The Western Australian plan which has the same timeline requirements as the Victorian plan was signed quickly and before the new period commenced.

‍

Hypothetical

Let’s do a rough back of the envelope number crunch to look at the likely impact of the change to ‘finer scale’. Let’s assume this knocks out 30 per cent of the land in Victoria previously described in the population model as Kangaroos habitat. We should note, the Victorian Government have already included Kangaroo counts from public lands.

What follows is a crude calculation of the impact of applying ‘finer scale’ but demonstrates the point. The reduction would lower the government’s 2022 population survey estimate of 2,363,850 Grey Kangaroos to 1,654,695 (a number still double our estimate of the maximum population). If you extend the logic here, the pressure will be on to count more Kangaroos and to review the ‘detection probability’ calculation. The next survey will have to count, again a rough estimate, around 8,500 Kangaroos to maintain the 2022 population estimate, assuming other model parameters remain the same. So it will be very interesting to see what numbers they come up with.

Remember three things here, from 2025, the rezoning of shooting zones that fudges comparisons further, and the move into public lands across the state and the excision of Melbourne from a shooting zone.

The scientific method of comparison requires comparing the same or as close to the same as possible over given intervals of time, this is a very long way from what has happened in Victoria (and some other states) where changes have occurred, to make any sensible comparisons over time, near impossible.

The number of Kangaroos targeted in Victoria since 2010.

• 2010 – 39,559
• 2011 – 34,721
• 2012 – 45,717
• 2013 – 75,139
• 2014 – 84,100
• 2015 – 135,887
• 2016 – 169,544
• 2017 – 189,086
• 2018 – 168,992
• 2019 – 136,502 (Red Kangaroo not added to KHP in Victoria)
• 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 (plan) - Victorian Government claim yet another significant increase in the population of Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroos, this time 24 per cent). Our estimates show that the most probable total kill in 2023 was, adjusting the claimed ATCW number of 75,375 downwards to 31,657, gives a total kill figure for Grey Kangaroos in Victoria in 2023 of 103,889. This reduction with even the significant level of killing occurring on public land using ATCWs.
• 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.

‍

To keep this Kangaroo killing show alive and well, claims from politicians and their public servants include, that Kangaroos, which have co-habited with all other Australian species for millions of years and have evolved to do so, are apparently responsible for threatening lizard, amphibian and insect species, threatening possums and parrots, destroying grasslands, destroying infrastructure. These claims are among the latest, some in long-term use, in this saga of marketing and enabling nonsense. And Kangaroo populations have not generally increased but declined and are now missing from vast areas across the Australian Continent. There are extinctions, regional extinctions, endangered and numerous threatened species in this family. One of the more startling claims of recent times comes from a former Agriculture Minister in Victoria, Mary-Anne Thomas, I quote:

“While Kangaroos are native wildlife (which is supposed to be protected) the Victorian Government understands that they can also have a detrimental effect on farms and Victoria's economy by eating crops, drinking water meant for livestock, and damaging property such as fences”.

So we can conclude that in Victoria Kangaroos have no place of safety, nowhere they can exist as a wild and native animal without constant fear of the intensely cruel death they are about to experience. These are Australia’s landscapes of fear.

Despite the claims by the Victorian Government there appears to be no record or evidence of damage and nothing on which to base these claims.

“You requested the metrics of damage caused by Kangaroos to property. In some areas, wildlife can damage property, farmland or the environment. Wildlife can also pose a threat to human safety or suffer in areas where the species is over-abundant. Wildlife control may be needed to manage the problem. I am unaware of any national or state level statistics of damage caused by wildlife, including Kangaroos, to property on private or public land”. Acting Deputy Secretary, Regional Development and Outdoor Recreation

One thing of which you can be certain, Kangaroos are not damaging Victoria’s economy, except that is, for the economic destruction and loss that the commercial exploitation of these animals exacts on businesses and residents in regional Victoria adjacent to the killing fields. And when this exploitation moves to public lands at the beginning of 2025, you can be certain of something else, that the economic damage will continue to increase. Be very careful out there.