A new documentary, Kangaroos: a love-hate story, has stoked a fiery new culture war, attracting controversy for its depiction of the killing of kangaroos in the culling and harvesting industry. The film had already made a splash in the US, with several outlets covering the film, but the storm has finally reached Australian media.
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has trooped off to Belgium to speak at a screening, and in a move you could set your watch to, The Australian has run a piece chronicling the kangaroo meat industry’s furious response, along with a damning editorial criticising Rhiannon (and the Greens, by extension) for her support.
Rhiannon, for her part put out a statement on Monday, explaining the self-funded trip:
“We will use the evidence to show that kangaroos are in trouble.
“Myths about kangaroos are uncritically repeated as facts in Australia and abroad which provides social and political license to keep shooting these animals beyond their reproductive capacity.
“Australians tend to forget that kangaroos are one of the world’s most iconic species, and are largely unaware that government management of kangaroos is not from a framework of conservation, but from an intent to bolster commercial shooting” she said.
So, is this just an classic Oz beat-up on the Greens? Removing moral and economic concerns, how does the science of culling and harvesting stack up?
Professor David Lindenmayer of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University told Crikey the difference is between a focus on conservation and animal liberation.
“It’s a distinction the media doesn’t make enough — an animal welfare group will be fundamentally driven by the individual welfare of one animal, whereas a conservation scientist will look at the integrity and stability of a natural ecosystem,” he said.
On that reading, things don’t look particularly good for Rhiannon.
Are kangaroos numbers ‘in trouble’?
“The important context is to know that there significantly more of some of the large kangaroos than there would have been upon white settlement of Australia,” he said. “Their natural controls, whether it’s Aboriginal hunting or predators such as dingoes have really been taken out of the landscape. At the same time, a lot of forest areas have been cleared for grasslands, and kangaroos are particularly good at turning grass and water into more kangaroos. As a result, in many areas the kangaroo populations have flourished.”
The estimated number of kangaroos in Australia varies. The Oz piece cites Department of Environment and Energy figures putting the figure at nearly 45 million, with the caveat that “Population estimates are based on aerial and ground surveys and are for the areas within Australia where commercial harvesting occur”. And the department argues the actual national populations would be significantly higher, as these figures do not include estimates for areas not surveyed. Lindenmayer has a more conservative estimate of 25 million, which would still make kangaroos “one of the most abundant large land mammals on the planet”.
As has been pointed out by Daniel Ramp and Karl Vernes in The Conversation, data on the historical decline or increase in kangaroo numbers is open to manipulation, or at least grabbing a window that suits your narrative.
What are the wider impacts of a booming boomer population?
“Too many herbivores in an area flows on to lots of other impacts,” he said. “We have seen in some of our studies, when you have larger kangaroo population — or sheep, or cattle — on native plant diversity, on native reptiles and it also has significant effects on bird populations and beetles.”
Even if they’re ‘necessary’, don’t these culls employ needlessly brutal methods?
The film contains graphic imagery of kangaroo culls.
“I’ve seen how these hunting work, I don’t exactly like what I see, but I understand that it’s part of this industry, just like it is in the sheep and cattle industry,” Lindenmayer said. “My experience is that the people inovolved in culls are expert marksmen, and do everything they can to ensure a clean quick kill.”
In response to the claim the film depicts joeys “beaten to death” to save bullets, Lindenmayer said “I have never seen that, I’ve never seen farmers or officials do that. And I’ve been doing this for 35 years. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’ve never seen it.”
“The quotas are strongly set, by repeated surveys, extensive work is done on what the upper and lower numbers of a cull can be, and then the numbers of animals taken are almost always on the lower end. My experience is it’s one of the best regulated meat based natural resource industries in the world, in terms of the science that underpins it.”
What sort of kangaroos?
They are not all the same – there are about 40 medium to large species and their numbers vary considerably as does their conservation status. I’ve got 3 species just on my property. They can’t properly be all lumped into one basket labelled ‘kangaroos’.
In fact for [at least] 3 species there are none left at all – gone extinct sadly.
One [at least], the Toolache Wallaby, as recently [probably] as the 1970s.
And the population ‘estimates’ are a joke – from this article alone a huge variation of from 25 million to 45 million is cited.
To put that into context there are more than 70 million sheep in OZ currently.
Not counting other herbivores [obviously] eg cattle, goats, brumbys, camels, buffalo, pigs, rabbits, deer …..
Rhiannon versus “The Australian”?
“The Australian” writes crap.
Agree with all in your post S.
Not sure about our yankee cousin’s credibility in the debate.
I’m afraid that in an argument between Rhiannon and anyone, I’m inclined to trust anyone.
In an argument between Rhiannon and the Australian, well, it’s an argument I’m not going to adjudicate on.
But this debate has been happening since I was a kid, perilous calls that kangaroos will be extinct by next week, vicious hunters wiping out a species etc, and yet still, there they are in just about any bush setting you find yourself in.
There may be particular species of Kangaroo that are being wiped out, but that is unlikely to be attributable to shooters.
Emotive click-bait marketing for Rhiannon.
As inexplicably strange as it seems to the guessperts, roos are oddly suited, adapted even, to a continent with poor, depleted ancient soils of exceptional fragility, erratic and widely variable rainfall with a vegetation which is mostly inedible to hard hoofed mammals from the northern landmasses.
Like eucalyptus, the governing factor in fertility is water which, to stop Ovis/Bovis expiring toot sweet, is made available across vast areas.
I would be glad to see the eradication of Ovis & Bovis and a roo meat industry for those recalcitrant throwbacks who insist on being carnivores.
BTW, in Germany roo meat is more expensive and eagerly consumed that venison.
Yep, I’ve long been an advocate of a scientifically managed roo farming industry.
Wouldn’t be hard to set up and would be very profitable. Have you ever felt roo leather?
But I’m afraid we don’t have the ‘agile and innovative’ mindset to put it into practice.
The carrying capacity of my property is less than 1 sheep, even less for cattle, maybe 1 goat could survive here although I doubt it, and all the other introduced/ferals would be equally disadvantaged.
But the dozens of resident roos, of 3 species, are quite comfortable here.
Strangely enough they were ‘designed’ [oops, by nature I meant] to cope with the various Oz habitats far better and far more productively [in a narrow economic sense] than the traditional imports.
But our national thinking is drowned out by the noise from the ‘cut it down/shoot it mob’ if its not from England.
Poor fella my country.
Australian managers, policy advisers and most scientists have advocated culling kangaroos and other Indigenous species, especially in the last 3 decades. We also have a history of culling kangaroos because we blamed them for the lack of agricultural success. A bounty in Queensland for a ‘kangaroo species’ mixture of species in 1877 http://ro.uow.edu.au/asj/vol1/iss1/3. was long before fertilisers. Stock couldn’t eat native grasses until they reshoot after burning, while kangaroos could eat them at any age. Gordon Grigg, who undertook many Ariel counts of kangaroos, recalculated the original ‘desktop’ estimate of grass consumption by kangaroos, bringing down – to o.2 of what a sheep would eat (dry sheep equivalent) – or as much as two rabbits. Farmers have too often assumed kangaroo impact when it has been ferals! Having their own dung bettles ( and do not pollute water with harmful bacteria like introduced stock), being selective grazers and avoiding sharing even small patches of pasture with sheep (Prof Ian McDonald 1988 pers.comm.) The competition between kangaroo like species and stock has been vastly overstated – understandably in the past. Their value for flammable fuel reduction has been ignored. They and all species of wallably balance green pic with dry pasture grass, the ignition point for most of the worst bush fires and a source of grass fires that can be far more rapid traveling and more lethal – killing many people as part of the Hobart ‘Bushfires’ and the Ash Wednesday fires in addition to many other fatal grass fires. Pasture grasses that kangaroos and wallabies target beyond the paddocks are highly flammable drying off in the summer/dry season unlike native grasses that remain green. With new wildlife cameras there is no excuse for failing to count kangaroos – and the rabbits, deer, goats and range of other feral grazers before issuing permits to shoot native grazers. Hobby farmers and weekenders should never under any circumstances be allowed to kill kangaroos. Finally it is sad to see yet another academic indicate the Indigenous Australians controlled the populations of many species of kangaroos and wallabies. You cannot generalise about a continent twice the size of Europe. Every one of 3-500 Indigenous nations has a different relationship with kangaroos and their kin. Basic research for each region will likely reveal that they were hunted pre colonial ‘possession’, but not until there were few left controlling their population. The remains in Indigenous eating places tell of occasional kills. There are also many early contact and indigenous Australian stories tell of great efforts breaking down each animal for its skin, tendons, flesh etc. The notion that Indigenous Australians controlled populations of Indigenous animals is wrong ecologically ( See Paul Colinvaux and Odum) as is based on the colonial habit of telling Indigenous people what they used to do – or picking those with an opinion you chose to believe. Indigenous kangaroo and wallaby hunting is far more common now because they represent the last Indigenous mammals left in too many places. Where most of the ‘government sanctioned’ kangaroo culling happens, such as the range lands of Western NSW, productivity of much of the land is poor. Investing in Indigenous peoples and other land managers to manage the least productive portions of their land for the Indigenous suite of species, controlling feral animals, weeds and wildfire. The return on that investment through more, better quality water (and fish) and carbon sequestered (stored) – keeping farmers and Indigenous Australians on their land.
Excellent contribution Bob – esp the whinge I heard just a day or two ago from a “farmer” who swore blind that roos degrade & detroy land needed for his destructive alien stock.
As with cats & foxes, the amount of this nation that is wasted on introduced domestic animals, without the ferals from fluffy bunnies to camels, goats & horses etc.
It’d make a marble statue weep.
I haven’t seen the film nor will I make an effort too. No doubt they have some footage of neurally challenged creatures in utes acting like the arseholes they really are. The fact is the game meat industry in Australia is closely monitored and culling numbers are scientifically determined. Shooters/ processors would not risk their livelihood for needless cruelty.
I’m sure the producers of the film were unable to find anybody of sound mind who actually “hates” macropods in all their wonderful varieties. Lee Rhiannon on the other-hand, they would not even have to search further than her own ramshackle inner city political party