Export quota fuels new kangaroo debate

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 10

Export quota fuels new kangaroo debate

By DEBRA BULL of the Australian Associated Press (through NZPA) Sydney

Environmentalists, farmers and Governments — plus European politicians — are again arguing over how many kangaroos should be slaughtered. It is an issue over which nobody has complete control and which conflicting interests make a generally accepted solution difficult to find.

The kangaroo may be Australia’s most important national symbol, but it is also, depending on perspective, an animal to be protected, a source of income, or a danger to fanners. 7 The Federal Government cannot control The

total kill in each state, nor what species are killed, apart from through its control over the sAustl2 million ($16.2 million) export industry. After agreement with the states on kangaroo management plans, the Government sets an annual quota for export in each state — about 15 per cent of the estimated live kangaroo population in Australia.

This year the quota is 2.7 million, 33 per cent up on last year. But despite two months of negotiations, Queensland has refused to accept its share of 1.38 million, saying it wants 1.8 million.

The refusal is jeopardising Queensland’s commercial kangaroo shooting in-

dustry because the Commonwealth will not allow any kangaroo exports from the state until the quota is agreed on. Queensland shooters and processors are still working, saying they have to fulfil the domestic demand, but are pressuring both Governments to find a solution.

The Queensland National Parks Minister, Mr Peter McKechnie, has claimed influential support for his view from a European Parliamentary delegation that visited Queensland in November to inspect its kangaroo population. The delegation’s chairman, Undine-Uta Bloch von Biottnitz, while not expressly supporting the larger®quota for Queens-

land, said that expert scientists should be allowed to determine the quota, not graziers or conservationists.

She will report to European members of Parliament who, like United States law-makers, are being lobbied to support bans on kangaroo imports.

Environmentalists are waging a campaign not 'only against the Queensland Government, but also against the whole concept of commercial kangaroo killing. Greenpeace, Australians for Animals, and the Fund for Animals told the Senate select commmittee on animal welfare, which is investigating kangaroo welfare and management, that they opposed all commercial culling and would

step up their campaigns against the industry. The groups want only natural regulation, by drought, or non-lethal controls such as electric fences, on improved pastures.

Spokesmen told the committee that they preferred to see kangaroos starve to death during a drought because it was “natural”, rather than being shot or poisoned. The groups say that no-' body has any idea of the total kangaroo or wallaby kill in Australia, because statistics on non-commeri-,cal kills are not kept, although millions of animals are killed each year by non-professional shooters. Their evidence to the committee was sometimes

emotional, including assertions that some protesters were being monitored by Intelligence agencies, and that Customs officers were being discouraged from stopping fauna trafficking. The National Farmers’ Federation says that farmers’ livelihoods would be jeopardised by a ban on commercial kangaroo slaughter and issued a warning of "anarchy” if farmers were forced to resort to their «fcwn methods of regulation. Spokesmen gave warnings of kangaroo plagues within three years, with farms being overrun and eaten out

Shooters, saying they wertfat the mercy of bigtime processsors, spoke of

multi-million dollar inter- ; state smuggling rackets ’ and fears that illegal, irresponsible people would «• wipe out kangaroo populations.

Kangaroos, members of the family macropodinae (great-footed) and unique to Australia, were named by Captain James Cook, who heard Aboriginals refer to .them as kangurus, and thought it meant “I don’t understand”.

Australians since have developed a huge soft spot for the long-tailed, gianthaunched herbivore. Australians are fascinated by and proud of ’them, although Europeans — like-Aboriginals earlier — hzAe always killed! them for meat and skins.