Film Night – Kangaroo – A Love Hate Story

Some Kangaroo Facts You NEED to Know by Peter Preuss

The Australian Government annually spends millions of dollars supporting the kangaroo industry worldwide. Eight different species of kangaroo and wallaby are commercially killed throughout Australia.
Each year, several million kangaroos are killed with quotas supposedly based on population estimated.

But quotas, however, are never met because populations are always over-estimated. The shortfall between quotas and actual kills is growing rapidly as shooters simply can’t find the kangaroos anymore. The ‘take’ on a zone-by-zone basis is often under 10% of quota and rarely more than 50% of quota.

In 2023, the total take on mainland Australia was only 26% of the 5,132,148 the quota. (Tasmanian figures are not even reported and are not included in the quotas). Obviously, quotas, which are never met, reflect commercial demand for skins and meat, not real population sizes.

The Red Kangaroo is in particular trouble. They are already locally extinct, or at least commercially extinct, throughout much of their natural range.

When kangaroo numbers are low, shooting zones are expanded, new zones created and new species are added to the kill list. Some states even allow commercial killing within National Parks in order to satisfy the unsatiable but unachievable commercial demand for carcasses.

There is a national code of practice for the killing of kangaroos and wallabies. Adult kangaroos are to be head shot. However, I can assure you, this simply does NOT happen. Joeys ‘at foot’ are also meant to be dispatched. But they are just left to die of starvation and exposure when their mothers are killed. According to the code, ‘in-pouch’ joeys are killed by a bash to the head. Nobody ever enforces the code.

So, the kangaroo Industry is not only unsustainable, but also inevitably cruel.
Victoria has been the exception for decades. After the CSIRO deemed it unsustainable, the Labour Party

stopped the kangaroo industry in the 1980s and promised to allow it again (Thanks Hon. Evan Walker).

However, with constant lobbying and an inability for the industry to meet commercial demand throughout the rest of Australia, the current Victorian Labour Government has capitulated. (Thanks Dan Andrews, Ministers Peter Walsh, Lily D’Ambrosio, Ingrid Stitt and, most recently, Steve Dimopoulos).

In 2014, commercial killing was quietly reintroduced as a “trial”. I didn’t even hear about it until recently. As quotas can’t be reached interstate, Victoria’s quotas have steadily increased by the above Ministers.

By 2023 the quota was 166,750. Divide that by 365 days, and again by 8-night hours and then again by 60 minutes. You’ll see our State Labour Government has gone from not allowing commercial killing of kangaroos at all, to sanctioning an adult kangaroo to be killed every minute of every night somewhere in Victoria.

Commercially killing Red Kangaroos in Victoria has been stopped as they are already commercially extinct.

In the Mallee, once a stronghold for kangaroos and where commercial killing started, even the quota for Grey Kangaroos had to be reduced to ZERO. There were simply too few kangaroos left to be commercially viable.

To meet market demand, Kangaroos are now commercially killed almost all over Victoria, including most recently the Yarra Ranges. In 2025 kangaroos will even be taken on public lands including National Parks.

The Shire of Yarra Ranges, (unlike Nillumbik, Cardinia, Mornington and Mt Alexandra…) have not challenged the state government’s enthusiasm to exploit kangaroos. WHY NOT?

Candidates during the current Yarra Ranges Council election have been invited to the viewing of ‘Kangaroo – A Love-Hate Story’ on World Kangaroos Day. I have asked them to explain their personal views and to explain why we have accepted the introduction of this cruel and unsustainable industry. Please, come along and if you care about wildlife, hold off voting until you have heard their position on October 24.