In my view, it is highly
likely that we as the modern Australian human population, of whatever ancestry,
European, Aboriginal, post World-War 2 migrant or whatever, stand today at one
of those watershed points in history at which decisions which may seem trivial
at the time turn out to have massive and largely unforeseen consequences. I
refer to the likely fate of Australia’s population of macropods; our kangaroos
and wallabies.
I use the possessive
pronoun ‘our’ because they are part of the Australian landscape and ecology,
every square morsel of which is under ownership claim or sovereignty or
notional control of somebody.
There is a massive purge
of the macropod population underway, largely and deliberately kept away from
public attention as a matter of government policy and media compliance. Added to that, the only people in favour of
the massive ‘cull’ presently in progress are those with some sort of financial
stake in it, and who stand to make short-term gains by running and condoning
it.
The 2011 Population
estimates for kangaroos within the ‘commercial harvest areas’ are:
State Red (Macropus rufus) 11,514,298
Western Grey (Macropus
fuliginosus) 2,348,393
Eastern Grey (Macropus
giganteus) 16,057,783
Wallaroo/Euro (Macropus
robustus) 4,383,203
Total kangaroo population: 34,303,677
These 2011 figures are
from the Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, (see
link below) and every table published at that site includes something of a
Caesarean handwash: “Note: Population estimates are based on aerial and ground
surveys and are for the areas within Australia where commercial harvesting
occurs. The actual national populations would be significantly higher as these
figures do not include estimates for areas not surveyed.”
I suggest that the real
numbers are nowhere near that today.
The commercial kill is
sanitised by being given the more wholesome descriptor of ‘harvest’; which
euphemism might associate it in the reader’s mind, perhaps unintentionally, with
happy flaxen-haired lads and lasses bringing in a bountiful crop of golden
grain; or whatever. But for some reason best known to themselves, state and federal
governments have been generally coy about the number or mass of kangaroo
carcasses produced by such ‘harvests’.
All other official stats, even of feral pests like wild pigs, goats, camels,
donkeys and such, even down to wild rabbits, have always been freely available;
but not on kangaroos.
This may be because the
reality is open season year round on kangaroos in all parts of Australia. These
days, nobody ever gets prosecuted for illegally shooting them. Result: there is
an undeclared war of extermination in progress.
‘Extermination’ is not too
strong a word to use. Jock Marshall, formerly Professor of Zoology at Monash
University and an ardent conservationist wrote an influential book entitled The Great Extermination (1966) about it
all. He also stated somewhere that he did not mind seeing wildlife skittled by
the side of the road, because that told him what was about, and what not.
Driving around the ACT and
NSW in the post-‘harvest’ present, one sees the occasional of infantile and
juvenile roadside kangaroo corpse, but nothing larger. A reasonable assumption
is that those mature animals have been selected out by the shooters, who
apparently get money by selling them into the pet food trade; the bigger the roo, the more money into the
shooter’s pocket. Interestingly, wombat road kill is generally large to
fully-grown animals. As they are burrowers, they have a refuge. And their
corpses have no commercial value.
This is the very opposite
of Darwinian natural selection, well summed-up in the phrase ‘survival of the
fittest’. That is, of the animals best-suited to the environment around them. Thus
every canned roo arguably spells doom for the species, though only on the day
after tomorrow.
Consider wild
pre-Aboriginal Australia, say before 110,000 years ago. It was a vastly
different continent. Evidence uncovered in the pollens on the bed of Lake
George, NSW, indicates that the dominant tree species then were of the genus Casuarina, not Eucalyptus. Kangaroos of all species were around, their numbers
regulated and varying around a mean set both by feed availability and those of
the then-dominant carnivore, the now-extinct marsupial thylacine, later to be
known as the ‘Tasmanian tiger’.
Into this situation
stepped the first Aboriginals: probably Tasmanians. They, and the Murrayan and
Carpentarian Aborigines following them in, apparently hunted the competing
thylacine to extinction on the mainland, and so took over the
dominant-carnivore role for themselves.
Thylacines and the
kangaroos they preyed upon would both have been acting as gene selectors. The
fleetest kangaroos selected out the least fleet and vigorous of the thylacines,
and the genetically fittest of the thylacine carnivores would have selected out
the least vigorous and slowest of the kangaroos.
Each of both species in
this prey-predator relationship would have kept the other on its toes
genetically. And just to complicate things, each of them was involved as well
in a number of such relationships with a number of other species. And much the
same would have applied to the Aboriginal-kangaroo relationship.
In my time, even the salt
water crocodile has been endangered, until protections were put in place. But
fortunately for them, their genetic base appears to have been sufficiently wide
to carry them through.
Somewhat ominously, a
report in The Canberra Times by Jasper
Lindell (link below) says a “cull of kangaroos in five nature reserves across
Canberra has been completed earlier than anticipated, with the reserves set to
fully reopen to the public.
“The cull of 1,505 eastern
grey kangaroos was completed more than two weeks ahead of schedule, with fewer
animals killed than the 1,568 forecast.”
Whatever the reason for
the early ‘completion,’ we will be left with whatever long-term effect on the
population results from repeatedly, cull after cull, selecting out the biggest
and best, always leaving the also-rans as the breeding population, with
evidence in the road-kill. That should be our main concern. It is not only
counter to the Darwinian principles on which Nature has operated since the
cooling of the primordial oceans, it violates the basics of all livestock
breeding practice.
Thylacines and then
Aboriginal hunters kept the macropods of Australia on their toes genetically
for millions of years plus thousands more. But since 1788, firearms have
enabled the gun-hunter, first on foot and then in motor vehicles equipped for
shooting by night to line up their quarry through a telescopic sight, and drop
it with a gentle squeeze on the trigger; selecting out of the breeding
population the biggest and the best, with the barest minimum of effort on his
own part.
What is the best way
forward from here?
Even if the thylacine had
not been wiped out by early farmers and settlers, its reintroduction would be
no more tolerated by them than dingoes are today. At the same time, kangaroos
are seen as competitors with sheep and cattle for the available grass and
herbage, and they will always face starvation in drought times. Added to this
is agitation by graziers for the right to put their stock into reserves such as
the national parks when feed is no longer available in their paddocks.
ACT
Parks and Conservation Service director Daniel Iglesias reportedly
told The Canberra Times in May kangaroo populations in urban areas were
distinct from kangaroo populations in nearby national parks, where many animals
perished in bushfires.
"This particular cull
doesn't touch Namadgi kangaroos, nor does it touch Tidbinbilla kangaroos or
even the kangaroos that live in the Murrumbidgee corridor," he said.
"These are urban
kangaroos. These are kangaroos that are living on these islands that are in the
urban footprint, and that are effectively living a life where they have no
natural predation."
That is wrong, as urban foxes
get a lot of the young ones.
Mr Iglesias added a bit of
sanitisation to the cull. He also said in May, according to the CT report, that several hundred carcasses from the
cull would be sent to a wildlife sanctuary to help rear endangered Australian
animals. (My emphasis – IM.)
"What we want to do
is get to a point where 100 per cent of the animals that we cull, we can reuse
in some way," he said, acknowledging previous criticism that the culling
program wasted carcasses.
"We've reached out to
a number of businesses and we think that in the years to come, it's actually a
worthwhile target to try and reuse all the carcasses. We've made good headway
this year, we hope we can improve on it again next year."
Oh well, that’s all right
then.
I am a gun owner. My main quarry to date has been the odd injured steer which has needed putting down. But if I were to shoot a jam
tin off a gate post inside any town or city area in this country, I would be in trouble with the law, and
rightly so. Yet roo shooters have official endorsement to break the gun laws
and endanger public safety; every year, and with official sanction. As things
stand, sooner or later, someone is likely to get accidentally or deliberately
killed or injured by urban gunfire. In Canberra.
What is left mysterious in
the above is the need for the cull in the first place. If the kangaroos eat down
the grass in suburban areas, then as they run short of feed they will move to
other areas. So in its perverse way, the cull is job creation: making work for
people on ride-on mowers; helping the economy. There is no way, Jose, that the cull can be 'for the good of the kangaroos.'
No matter which game he is
in, the poor old kangaroo is always dealt a hand from the bottom of the pack by
the local card-sharp. But shooting the biggest and the best can never be a
rational option for kangaroo management.
https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/natives/wild-harvest/kangaroo-wallaby-statistics/kangaroo-population
https://www.pnas.org/content/94/10/5147
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7341146/kangaroo-cull-in-act-nature-reserves-finished-ahead-of-schedule/?cs=14260
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