Shoot me kangaroos down, sport
AUSTRALIA’S capital is suffering from a plague of kangaroos and professional hunters may be brought in to cull thousands of the animals.
The population of eastern grey kangaroos on two sites in Canberra has reached about 6,500, and the marsupials are now facing starvation because of the ongoing drought and over-population of the area.
But local wildlife campaigners say a cull could drive the kangaroos to extinction in the area. They have threatened to take direct action to prevent shooting.
The main problem sites are Canberra’s Majura military training area, where there is a group of about 6,000 kangaroos, and the Belconnen naval transmission station, where there are another 500. If a cull goes ahead, about 2,800 will be shot at Majura and 400 at Belconnen, with the carcasses buried in a pit.
The federal defence department has asked the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government for permission to bring in trained shooters for the cull, which is aimed at bringing numbers down to sustainable levels.
The animals are said to be causing serious erosion through over-grazing, which is in turn affecting two threatened species of lizard and the gold sun moth.
A trial project is also underway to try to reduce the kangaroos’ fertility, using measures such as baits laced with sterilisation compounds, but that is seen as separate from the imminent need to reduce numbers.
The ACT’s acting environment minister John Hargreaves said a licence for shooting had not yet been granted and there was no firm start date.
Nora Preston, the president of Canberra’s Wildlife Carers Group, said: “We will mount physical measures to stop it and maybe call in [activist group] Animal Liberation. There is not a kangaroo problem. Culling is extremely cruel - perhaps sterilisation is the way to go.”
Her group claims the animals are not causing erosion.
“Kangaroos are doing a lot of good and encouraging the vegetation to grow,” she added.
Ms Preston claimed there were not a huge number of kangaroos left in Canberra, describing them as a “very small mob” which the authorities were going to drive to extinction.
And she added: “The ACT is the only state to have this unacceptable policy [of culling kangaroos], which proves that they are doing something wrong.”
A previous cull in ACT in 2004 saw about 800 kangaroos killed to keep numbers down.
Martin Bowles, deputy secretary of the defence support department, said: “Kangaroos have become a serious environmental problem on defence sites in the ACT, requiring measures to reduce overpopulation.”
The animals are said to have stripped the land of native grasses. Soil erosion and invasion by weeds are also a problem, Mr Bowles said.
The ACT government said anyone applying for a licence to cull kangaroos had to meet strict criteria of necessity, efficacy and humaneness. DESPERATE MEASURES
HUMANS as well as kangaroos are suffering in Australia’s extended drought - several Outback towns in the state of New South Wales will run out of drinking water within weeks.
Tilpa is no longer pumping water from the drying Darling River and is relying on bottled water and household rainwater tanks.
Orange City’s local council has to decide whether to hand over a large amount of its remaining drinking water reserves to the workers in a local gold mine, to keep it open and save 500 jobs.
Bore holes are already in use in Ivanhoe, and dwindling rainwater tanks are being relied on in White Cliffs.
