The Sickening Murder Of Kangaroos

The Slaughter Of Kangaroos.
I’m an Indigenous Australian woman and a wildlife rescuer and carer.
I’ve spent 40 of my 45 years living with, researching, rescuing and rehabilitating Kangaroos, Wallabies and Wallaroos.
Kangaroos have been relentlessly hunted and slaughtered since settlement.
And since around the 1950’s the Australian Government have made the hunting legal by spreading propaganda such as kangaroos breed to plague proportions (which is biologically impossible) and that they are a pest that need to be controlled.
And rather than waste Kangaroos when they are killed, the Australian Government said let’s export their meat and skin for profit, and that’s what they still do.
Joeys are a waste product of the Kangaroo Industry and treated as such.
The hunting is not monitored, with no one overlooking the hunting, so you can imagine the carnage.
Kangaroo populations are being decimated, and due to drought, legal and illegal hunting, they are being wiped out, which of course the hunters and farmers will argue with you all night and they do! I tweet heaps of info, pics, facts etc. about Kangaroos and you are welcome to share anytime.
This is a great and informative website to give you some idea of the abhorrent Commercial Kangaroo Industry: http://www.australiansocietyforkangaroos.com/the_truth.html
There are plenty more websites with factual info by Ecologists, Zoologists etc condemning the slaughter and detrimental impact it’s having on Kangaroo populations, and of course the sickening cruelty that is the Commercial Kangaroo Industry.
You can see what I mean on:  https://youtu.be/r2CEZbaD-S0
Please be aware it is extremely graphic.
It’s been a hard long fight to try and get public perceptions to change toward our Kangaroos and I will keep fighting until they are protected and respected as the Iconic Indigenous Animal that they are.
I had another blow last week learning that despite the decimation of Kangaroos, the Australian Government has announced it is now exporting Kangaroo meat and skins to Peru and is chasing China, wanting to start an export trade with them, which means kill quotas for Kangaroos will be increased.
As of two weeks ago the Victorian Labour Party announced they will allow the continuing slaughter of Kangaroos for pet food, claiming Kangaroos are overpopulated and need to be ‘managed’.
Lies to justify slaughtering Kangaroos for profit.
( Ro Godwin, 03.04.2015 )

The Sickening Murder Of Kangaroos.
The mothers and their young share an extraordinary bond that will continue well into the young’s juvenile years when they are no longer dependent on their mother for food.
Even in adulthood, females set up home ranges around that of their mother.
The pouch young in later stages already look well developed but are still very dependent on their mother for survival.
And the young-at-foot who have left the pouch permanently also remain heavily dependent on their mother for survival until they are weaned when they are aged over 4-6 months.
Suddenly, the animals appear agitated, alert and some begin to scatter.
Spotlights appear and the shooters’ vehicles come into view.
Then BANG off goes a gun shot.
“Got him” says one of the shooters.
Yes, the Alpha male, the most attractive target for the shooters of the Kangaroo Industry, has gone down.
Because he is the biggest, he will fetch them a good fee.
“Oh there’s another big one” says a shooter, and BANG, another shot.
“Got him”.
“Nah mate, shot him in the mouth”.
“Shoot him again. Ah too late, he’s gone.”
The shooters target the head because the ‘Code of Practice’ says that kangaroos must be “head shot”.
Kangaroos that have not been head shot are not legally acceptable for processing into meat or leather.
But head shooting is difficult for even the most trained and precise shooter since shooting occurs from a moving vehicle and the target is a fast moving animal, and it is pitch black night apart from a spotlight that needs to keep the target in its field.
And so incidents such as the one just described occur often.
This particular adult male has been shot in the mouth but has escaped into the darkness of the Australian bushland in terror and excruciating pain.
He will die a slow and agonising death.
BANG, another shot.
This time the target is a large adult female.
“Yep, she’s down”.
Her young-at-foot has hopped off into the night.
He will call for his mother in vain.
She can no longer hear him.
He will now fall victim to a slow death from starvation, dehydration or predation.
( Eleonora Gullone, 16.12.2014 )

I worked in a kangaroo processing plant.
Do you all realise the amount of worms, abscessed meat and rat shot that is in the meat during processing?
I’ve been there and seen it.
You would never eat kangaroo if you had to see it processed.
You would vomit.
( Julianne Erskine )

High Levels Of Bacteria In Kangaroo Meat.
The Australian government permits licence holders to ‘cull’ or shoot kangaroos.
The past 20 years has seen approximately 90 million kangaroos and wallabies lawfully killed for commercial purposes.
Permits are meant to ensure that kangaroos are killed in a particular manner, in order to minimise their pain and suffering.
However, it is very difficult to ensure that kangaroos are killed humanely because widespread culling usually takes place at night.
An even more unfortunate aspect of the cull is that there are a number of baby kangaroos (joeys), who are also killed as part of the process.
Guidelines in Australia state that permit holders are to kill any joeys that are found in the pouches of injured or dead adult kangaroos.
Whilst this measure is meant to ensure that joeys die more humanely, rather than starving to death, the number of joeys and young kangaroos killed each year as a result of the cull is 1.1 million.
This is a huge waste, yet is viewed as collateral damage by the industry.
Because kangaroos are killed in the wild, there are obvious sanitation concerns with the meat that is produced both for human and pet consumption.
A number of experiments have recently shown kangaroo meat sampled from various Australian supermarkets to have high levels of bacteria.
This could therefore lead to serious health problems for consumers.
While kangaroos are native to Australia, they have come to be regarded as pests, despite both their national significance and the ethical concerns that arise as a result of this approach.
( Jordan Sosnowski, 2013 )

In 2008 Russia placed a temporary ban on imports after a consignment was found to be contaminated with bacterium that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service had no test to detect.
It happened again in 2014, due to unacceptable levels of E.coli.
Dog treats made from kangaroo meat were also withdrawn in 2014 due to Salmonella contamination.

He Came Across A Strange Hopping Animal.
In 1770, when Captain Cook set foot in North-East Australia, he came across a strange hopping animal and asked the natives what it was called.
‘Kangaroo’, they replied.
Thus the English language came to incorporate its very first Aboriginal word.
But, after a while, doubts about the authenticity of the word kangaroo began to be raised.
When other explorers spotted the animal in different parts of Australia and asked the natives what it was called, no one ever replied ‘kangaroo’ or anything remotely like it.
A hundred years later, the rumour began to spread that the word kangaroo in fact meant ‘I don’t know’.
It was not until 1971 that the mystery was cleared up.
An anthropologist called John Haviland was studying a tiny Aboriginal community of 1,000 people called the Guugu Yimithirr, who lived 30 miles north of Cooktown.
Haviland discovered that this tribe called one particular type of large kangaroo by the name ‘gangurru’.

Humans invaded their country and their space.
And now kill them when they wander where their ancestors used to roam.
Australia has the worst record in the world for mammal extinctions.
( Rose Winfold )