The Independent review of the of the South Australian Commercial Kangaroo Management Plan 2020–2024 (26 April 2024), to which the new plan owes a great deal to the changes being made, states:

“The goal of the plan is ‘to provide for the sustainable use of Kangaroo species referred to in this plan in accordance with the principles of 'ecologically sustainable development’. It also has a goal to provide an alternative management option for reducing the damage caused by overabundant Kangaroos. To achieve its goals, the plan defines 7 aims and 29 actions and lists 61performance indicators (PIs) to track implementation progress”.

This review was undertaken for the South Australian Government Department for Environment and Water and was general unknown by organisations and individuals trying to protect Kangaroos in Australia.

The changes in the South Australian Commercial Kangaroo Management Plan 2025-29 include:

The most revealing:

• Expanding into the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu sub-regions to include Adelaide foothills and national parks and reserves:

“Any Kangaroo ‘management harvesting’ or culling undertaken within a park is done so in accordance with strict public safety protocols. Part or all of the park may be closed or access restricted as needed while ‘management activities’ are undertaken. DEW makes every effort to give as much notice as possible before closing or changing access to a park”.

Other ‘initiatives’ that suggest the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos is not going to plan and a mopping-up of remnant Kangaroo populations is going to occur include:

• Introduction of more flexible approaches to the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos;
• Maintaining commercial quotas for three years before reducing quotas to 10 per cent when risk of over exploitation is low; and
• To allow small numbers of Eastern Grey Kangaroos to be commercially exploited in additional areas.

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South Australia has been the worst of all Australian states in pursuing remnant Kangaroo populations. The latest proposed changes will allow the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos in nearly all the places where they exist and will enable the commercial exploitation to continue, for just how long is the question?

Not that long is the answer.

South Australia has now published the actual commercial take data for 2023 and the result describes the problem. Just 17.4 per cent of the commercial quota was met in 2023. The total number of Kangaroos killed in that year for commercial gain was 100,594 out of a quota of 576,300.

It appears that the geographic expansions proposed for South Australia for 2025 represent the last remaining opportunity to allow the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos in new areas. The most terrible of which is the full scale expansion into state reserves and national parks. It may be possible to add yet more protected Australian species to the commercial list but we doubt this would be viable.

So South Australia has now achieved what Victoria has achieved, no further opportunity for expansions and no way back from ever declining populations of Kangaroos.

What is particularly shocking is that the commercial exploiters of Kangaroos have been lobbying to access public lands, including state reserves and national parks, for a very long time and that this particular expansion is occurring at a time of extreme climate change and a global extinction crisis, of which Australia is in the very front row.

The kinds of changes that have enabled the commercial exploitation to continue, South Australia currently achieves around  20 per cent of the annual commercial quota for the state, are:

• Adding new species of Macropod to the commercial list;
• Expanding shooting zones; and
• Improving access through various mechanisms including streamlining of processes.

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Models, population estimates and quotas

Australian State Governments use computer models to calculate annual Kangaroo populations estimates, they count very few Kangaroos and extrapolate this ‘tiny sample’ across particular landscape types, depending on species.

This process has always led to vastly inflated population estimates.

Kangaroo species also breed very slowly and Kangaroos across the continent, in the places where they exist, have been slaughtered at industrial scale, including their joeys.

Since European settlement there have been numerous regional extinctions of Kangaroo and Wallaby species and sadly total extinctions, there are numerous endangered and threatened species in this family of animals. The reasons for which can be described in the processes discussed here.

The quota is meant to be a safety mechanism to ensure Kangaroo populations in the state are ‘sustainable’. Amid the usual spin and misinformation about Kangaroo populations, which when it comes Kangaroos, places South Australia as the most ‘creative’ of all states in relation to these matters, allows the public to believe the hyper-inflated population estimates that are an annual event.

• The pet food industry in Australia, and during most economic conditions, will consume as much Kangaroo meat that is on offer. This is because Kangaroo meat is cheap. So, the shortfall in quotas has nothing to do with lack of demand.
• The shortfall in quota is a supply side issue, the Kangaroos do not exist in the numbers stated. That is why we have these expansions into the last places of refuge for these wonderful native species.

Despite these very significant changes to capture more Kangaroos in commercial shooting zones, the actual take against quota (percentage) and the actual take (total number) has not increased. So the expansions are creating an opportunity to maintain the status quo in terms of numbers, and have little impact on expanding the scale of commercial operations.

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2020:

“South Australia’s Kangaroo commercial harvest zone will be expanded, and the 2020 quota has been set to help manage Kangaroos, as well as support primary producers. The Kangaroo commercial harvest zone will be expanded from South Australia’s pastoral area to cover Yorke Peninsula, Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu Peninsula, South East and Kangaroo Island".

The species of Kangaroo available for commercial harvest will include three new species, Tammar Wallaby (note from Peter Hylands – South Australian mainland sub-species once thought to be extinct), Kangaroo Island sub-species of Western Grey Kangaroo (Sooty Kangaroo) (until recently listed as threatened) and Eastern Grey Kangaroo (note from Peter Hylands – classified as rare in South Australia until they decided to kill them commercially), as well as the existing species of Red Kangaroo, Western Grey Kangaroo and Euro". Government of South Australia

So what follows is an example from 2020, following significant expansions, of why this new round of proposed changes in 2025 are necessary to allow this heinous  and intensely cruel activity to continue, albeit at levels which are already low and increasingly unsustainable in terms of their economics.

In South Australia, the 2020 commercial quota for all Kangaroo species was 518,600 Kangaroos across the entire expanded harvest zone, representing a 477 per cent increase on the number of Kangaroos exploited for commercial gain in 2018. The population estimate for that year was 3,545,902.

Despite these expansions and a very low level of take against quota in 2020, the population estimate for Kangaroos in commercial shooting zones 2021 fell to 2,810,547.

“This quota for 2020 is less than the 2019 quota of 730,200 and reflects the reduced population estimates as a result of the current dry conditions”. Government of South Australia

In South Australia, a total of 74,027 Kangaroos were killed for commercial purposes during the first eight months of 2020. This was just 14 per cent of the commercial Kangaroo quota for the year. The projected kill in 2020 for all species in August of 2020 was 108,609 and by year end the statistics now show that 19 per cent of the annual quota was achieved with a total of 98,962 Kangaroos being killed for commercial gain (including Special Land Management Quota). No Tammar Wallabies were killed and the actual take against quota for the Euro was just 7 per cent.

These numbers reflect the true status of Kangaroo populations in South Australia.

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Population estimate 3,912,711 up from 3,833,889 in previous year.

2024 Quota: Total commercial quota for South Australia in 2024 is 589,200, up from 576,300 in 2023.

Five species of Kangaroo and Wallaby are now killed commercially in South Australia, the Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroo, the Sooty Kangaroo from Kangaroo Island (distinct variant of Western Grey Kangaroo), the Kangaroo Island Tammar Wallaby, the Red Kangaroo and the Euro.

In 2024, South Australia is divided into Kangaroo shooting zones, which have been extended. They are Western Pastoral, Eastern Pastoral, Western Agricultural, Eastern Agricultural and Southern Agricultural. Commercial exploitation is also occurring on public lands including parks but at small scale. These main regions are divided into sub-regions.

As we can see the below statement was not entirely correct:

"As of 1 January 2020, the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos is allowed across the entire state, excluding metropolitan Adelaide and the Alinytjara Wilurara region for cultural reasons". South Australian Government

In 2022 / 2023 the South Australian Government claimed significant increases in Kangaroo populations, despite dire environmental conditions, previous quotas not being met by a very long way and the rapidly rising share of females and their joeys being killed.

Everything about South Australia and its commercial exploitation of Kangaroos provides evidence of serial decline of Kangaroo populations in that state, while its government claims increases in populations which cannot be possible. For example, the South Australian Government’s 2023 Kangaroo commercial quota report gives the Tammar Wallaby’s population on Kangaroo Island as 384,671, which is an increase more than nine times the previous population estimate.

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