THE ACT GOVERNMENT has proudly claimed that it murdered 1,931 Eastern Grey Kangaroos during it 2020 annual slaughter program. APA (Animal Protectors Alliance) considers it highly unlikely that anywhere near 1,931 kangaroos were killed on ACT reserves this year.
“It is far more likely that, if this figure is anything other than a complete fabrication, most of the killing was conducted on private property,” spokesperson, Robyn Soxsmith notes.
Many reserve observers have noted that there were nowhere near 1,931 kangaroos present on ACT reserves prior to commencement of this year’s massacre. Furthermore, throughout the seven weeks of the slaughter, no more than 200 shots were recorded on the south-side reserves (Callum Brae, Isaacs Ridge, West Jerrabomberra and Mugga Mugga), by watchers who were positioned well within hearing range of any shooting, every night of the massacre.
Ms Soxsmith speculates, “It is extremely likely that most of the killing occurred on local farms. This would be a win-win solution for the ACT government and the farmers. The farmers get all their kangaroos killed at taxpayers’ expense, and the government saves face for its preposterous estimates of the number of kangaroos present on ACT nature reserves”.
“It is of course a lose-lose tragedy for the kangaroos, the environment, and all the other residents of the ACT,” Ms Soxsmith adds.
Wherever the killing took place, and however many were murdered by this barbarous ACT government policy, innocent animals had their lives blown away, families were shattered, untold pouch joeys were bludgeoned to death, and untold at-foot joeys orphaned to die of starvation, dehydration, exposure and myopathy. All this cruelty is in accordance with the government’s hypocritically named “National Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos and Wallabies for Non-Commercial Purposes”.
“What was not in accordance with even that disgustingly inadequate code of practice is the shooting that took place on Isaacs Ridge Reserve in heavy fog on 24 June, where many blood trails and blood puddles were found the following morning, and the shooting that occurred on Callum Brae Reserve on 14 July in 45 kph winds,” Ms Soxsmith notes.
The government also claims, as it always does, that the slaughter was carried out to reduce the impact of the kangaroos on other native species and to manage overgrazing in grassy habitats around Canberra.
This assertion has been well and truly debunked by the CSIRO research which shows that:
