Australia Continues to Shoot / Kill / Slaughter Kangaroos

Just another writing in the segment “take the easy way out and kill” that we so sadly have to bring to attention monthly.

Article:

Australia to shoot 6,000 kangaroos

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090508/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_killing_kangaroos_2

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer – Fri May 8, 8:15 am ET

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia's army has started shooting 6,000 kangaroos to thin their population on an army training ground near the capital, an official said Friday, outraging conservationists who have vowed to protest.

The killings are intended to protect endangered plants and insects that share the grassy habitat with the kangaroos. A much smaller slaughter of 400 kangaroos on another Defense Department site in Canberra last year was disrupted by protesters.

Civilian marksmen contracted by the department began shooting the kangaroos on Tuesday night at Defense's Majura Training Area, where an estimated 9,000 of the wild marsupials roam, Army Brig. Brian Dawson told reporters.

"The culling is intended to reduce the kangaroo population to sustainable levels," Dawson said, describing the action as that of a "responsible landowner."

The nighttime shooting is expected to continue intermittently until August. The training ground covers more than 7,400 acres (3,000 hectares) and includes grenade and artillery firing ranges.

Bernard Brennan, president of Canberra's Animal Liberation conservation group, said protesters planned to descend on the area starting Friday night and many more would flock from around Australia next week. He could not predict how many.

"We're not going to sit back and let it happen," he said.

The kangaroo slaughter follows a recent government environmental report that the common eastern gray kangaroos are too numerous in Canberra's parkland and grassland, eating scarce native grass which is the habitat of endangered insects such as golden gun moths and perunga grasshoppers.

The kangaroo overpopulation is also threatening endangered reptiles, the grassland earless dragon and the striped legless lizard, the report said.

Kangaroos are slaughtered to control population throughout Australia, but government agencies have been reluctant to kill the beloved national symbol around Canberra in the past 20 years because of public outcry.

Cruel Australia will Resort to Shooting Kangaroos to Deal with Population Issues

Again, a group taking a very limited view of how to deal with an issue. Going straight to the “let’s kill it away” proposal.

Article:

Kangaroos in the firing line in Australia

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090317/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_shooting_kangaroos_3

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer Rod Mcguirk, Associated Press Writer – Tue Mar 17, 7:48 am ET
Kangaroos are seen in a field outside of government house in Canberra, Australia AP – Kangaroos are seen in a field outside of government house in Canberra, Australia Oct. 23, 2006. An official …

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia's capital is plagued by too many kangaroos, and the best solution is to shoot them, an official said Tuesday. Horrified conservationists vowed to demonstrate if authorities followed through.

Canberra has among the densest populations of the common eastern gray kangaroo in Australia, and they are regularly seen hopping in parks and other places around the city.

The kangaroo is a national emblem of Australia, but it can also be a nuisance. The animals munching grass and shrubs around Canberra are degrading their own habitats and adding to threats posed to rare insects and lizards.

Kangaroos hopping across streets are a frequent traffic hazard in the city, and they can pose other problems — as one family in the area discovered last week when a confused and panicked kangaroo leapt through a bedroom window and bounded around the house until it was thrust out the front door.

Jon Stanhope, the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory where Canberra is located, released a draft plan Tuesday describing how his government would reduce numbers the city's kangaroo population by shooting them — a method that has long divided this community of 330,000 people.

The plan does not say how many kangaroos should be killed.

Supporters say the absence of more effective biological controls leaves shooting as the most humane way to control kangaroo numbers.

"There are probably more eastern gray kangaroos in Canberra now than any time in the last 100 years," Stanhope told reporters. "I think we have perhaps tried too hard not to cull."

The population of kangaroos in the area is hard to determine because the animals move frequently, according to the availability of grass and water.

The territory's government has been involved since 1998 in research to develop an oral contraceptive for kangaroos but none is yet effective in the wild.

Stanhope said the research to develop humane alternatives to shooting would be encouraged.

The report ruled out trapping and trucking kangaroos to where they are less abundant because the process was expensive, unproven and illogical given there was no threat to the species' survival.

Pat O'Brien, president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia, warned that authorities would be met by protests if they tried to shoot kangaroos.

"The whole thing is a propaganda exercise to try to get public support for killing kangaroos," O'Brien said. Kangaroo number were high, "but there's certainly not too many of them."

The killing of 400 kangaroos out of 600 at an abandoned military site in Canberra last year triggered several heated protests.

Those kangaroos were killed with lethal injections because firearms were judged to be too dangerous at the site, which was within Canberra's city limits.

Recent government surveys said some 17 percent of Canberra drivers had reported colliding with a kangaroo at sometime in the past, though 82 percent of respondents considered it important that wild kangaroos continue to live in the city.