Australian Wildlife Protection Council

Author: AWPC

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State by state

State Of Play: Wildlife In Victoria

Share this page Amid claims from the Victorian Government that various native species are overabundant, and extraordinarily these claims still continue in various plans being issued by the Victorian Government, despite the vast scale loss of wildlife in the devastating fires. Here is an updated analysis of some of the Victorian Government’s numbers (publicly available or obtained under FOI) from our President, Peter Hylands, as he describes the real situation for Australian wildlife in the State of Victoria. The question we need to ask is why is so much wildlife dying in Victoria because of the enabling and often promotion of these killing activities by the very government responsible for the welfare of these precious and unique animals? 2020 WAS A very grim year for Victoria’s Australian species. What we can tell you is that Australian wildlife in Victoria is anything but protected. Wildlife in Victoria is also subject to extreme acts of cruelty. Much of this activity is encouraged and enabled by its current government. “As we managed to get caught in Melbourne’s extensive lockdown and ring of steel which locked up the city for many weeks, I have taken some of that time to investigate the current circumstances for Victoria’s native species. As always, marsupials and birdlife are in the forefront of the abuse. I have created this as a reference document for the reader to use”. Here are some simple facts for Victoria that tell a very grim story, yet the killing continues and is encouraged by the Victorian Government, and oddly by organisations such as the Country Women’s Association (CWA) as has recently been the case in Central Victoria. At a time of dire environmental conditions, including vast scale bushfires, the killing of Australia’s wildlife in Victoria has continued at scale. Permits to kill Kangaroos on a very large scale have been issued across Victoria’s regions (including Central Victoria) and populations are declining rapidly region by region, as remaining populations are targeted by commercial and non-commercial shooting activities. As is the case for the rest of Australia, the Victorian Government Kangaroo population estimates are exaggerated and this means that commercial quotas are most often not met (because the Kangaroos are not there in the numbers stated) and in at least one case in Victoria, and for one species of Kangaroo (it is now coming close to being more than one species), the number of permits being issued and the number of animals covered by these permits is likely to exceed their entire state population for that species. Victoria has been converting its Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW) Kangaroo permits to commercial permits, a process that commenced in 2014. We can however expect to see a drop off of animals killed in Victoria against commercial quotas as populations dwindle. Australia, including Victoria, is the leading exterminator of mammal species in the world.   “In early March 2020 I was working in the desert country to the   west of Alice Springs, a remote place where I often stay. Coming   in to see our friends in Hermannsburg I rang the Victorian ecodev    number 136 186 to enquire how the latest Kangaroo harvest   quotas had been calculated for each Victorian region. I was put   through to a staff member in Ballarat and initially told there had   been surveys in both 2019 and 2020. I knew this to be incorrect   so  when I queried the response, I was given a lecture about how   terrible these animals are and told that people (like me) living in   cities do not understand the issues. Given that I have owned two   significant rural properties, one in Central Victoria over many   decades and another near the Endeavour River in Far North   Queensland and I spend time working in the remotest places in   Australia and I know a lot about numbers, these claims seemed   pretty outrageous”. — Peter Hylands Impact of the commercial trade in Kangaroos on killing rates in Victoria The repugnantly named Kangaroo Harvesting Program (KHP) began in Victoria on 1 October 2019 following the Kangaroo Pet Food Trial (KPFT) which commenced in 2014. If the periods 2009–13 and 2014–18 are compared, the rate of killing roughly tripled from 259,288 to 747,659 animals when those periods are compared. Sadly, having saved the Red Kangaroo from the pet food can in Victoria over concerns with vastly exaggerated population numbers, the high level of animals subject to the non-commercial ATCW permit in 2019 (10,073 animals) can only be described as malicious conduct. These next numbers required a bit of guess work so may be out by a small margin, but it looks like since 2009, much of it occurring from 2014 on, permits were issued to kill 1,385,339 Kangaroos, of which 555,026 were victims to the commercial trade in wildlife, across three species, that is the Eastern Grey, the Western Grey and the Red Kangaroo (other species were also killed in substantial numbers). If we add another 20 percent to that number for the number of Joeys killed by these activities that adds yet another 277,000 animals to the slaughter since 2009.    “The claims from both politicians and public servants in Victoria that the Kangaroo Pet Food Trial would not increase the rate of Kangaroo      killing, and then, once the trial had commenced, claims that significant increases in the killing   rate (for example an increase of the killing      rate for the Red Kangaroo of 759 times over the 2011 control total) was due to favourable climatic conditions, and hence conditions for   breeding resulting in population increases, are simply untrue. This becomes entirely obvious once the increases in kill rates are analysed   by region. The very significant increases in kill rates occurred in the Kangaroo Pet Food Trial zones. This is simply disgraceful, particularly   given the rates of killing from the period the trial commenced, that it is most probable that populations had started to decline rapidly during    2016.”      — Peter Hylands, 2018 The most Eastern Grey Kangaroos for which permits were issued in the period 01/01/2017 to 31/10/2019

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State by state

Country People: Shut Down Victoria’s Bird Shoot

Share this page Calls for immediate shut down of bird shoot due to “uncontrollable” lawlessness and health risks NOT EVEN A week since Victoria’s recreational bird shoot started and not even covid restrictions have prevented lawlessness and cruelty. Shocking pictures on social media show the proximity of men in army fatigues with guns near built-up areas. Reports have been made to the regulator about illegal shooting — well before allowable time — with the regulator’s response 24 hours later requesting more information which would help them identify the perpetrator.                                                                                                                                                                       IMAGE: Source Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting Inc Regional Victorian Opposed to Duck Shooting Inc (RVOTDS) are not surprised. “This happens every shooting season. Not only are regional families having to live with this happening on their doorsteps, but they also have to put themselves in harm’s way to collect evidence for the regulator to do its job as well.” Elsewhere, a complaint was made that shooters were flouting covid restrictions with the alarming outcome the police did not know the covid rules and nothing was done. And elsewhere, appalling cruelty appears to have been captured on video of a shooter trying to hide from cameras as he fed pieces of a live bird to his dog. “It is abundantly clear this pastime is unable to be controlled and poses a serious risk to our native birdlife and rural communities” said Kerrie Allen spokesperson for RVOTDS. “Why shooting native birds was ever allowed to proceed during covid is beyond us. Now we have lawless guys with guns around the state and bands of rescuers having to follow them. It’s unnecessary and dangerous when an ugly variant of fast spreading virus is breathing down our necks.” “Victoria is a basket case right now and is it any wonder? Time for accountability. That starts with saying ‘no’ — like other states have — to a group of folks who like to shoot birds for fun.” RVOTDS has submitted a lengthy complaint to the regulator about it’s “cumulative failings over the years’ and they say if that is not responded to quickly and appropriately they will take it “far further”. In the interim they are calling on James Merlino acting Premier to shut down the shooting immediately. “The regulator is still unable to provide accurate maps of where shooting is / is not allowed. It has also failed to list wetland closures on its website. How are shooters supposed to know where they can shoot let alone how are the public meant to know where to avoid? “Regional families have been totally forsaken on this issue year after year. We believe compensation is due given all the long days, weeks and months we’ve had to put up with this madness in our backyards every year with no consideration by policy makers.” — Kerrie Allen

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State by state

Victorians: Urgent Plea For Help

Share this page Dear Wildlife Protectors DAVINA DUCK AND and her three children Dixie, Dee and Dilley urgently need your help.  These gentle, defenceless, voiceless, beautiful birds live their lives in wetlands all over Victoria and the Victorian Labor government has again allowed, supported and promoted another season of duck shooting. This cruel, barbaric and inhumane slaughter of native wildbirds must be banned forever.  This video taken on the first day of the 2021 Duck Shooting season shows very clearly why? This little duck was alive, grabbed by a dog and then the sadistic shooter held the little duck while the dog savagely ripped it apart. It is beyond belief how anyone could commit this atrocity on another living being and just for ‘fun’. This little duck will never see another sunrise or sunset and you can hear the little duck crying as its life ends so horrifically. I am writing on behalf of all the ducks and their chicks who will be subjected to this killing spree until June 14. The adult ducks who are killed will leave chicks to die a long and agonising death as a result of starvation. Duck shooting must be banned forever and  the only way to achieve this is for compassionate, caring, intelligent and educated people to stand up for what they believe in, raise their voices and demand change. These native water birds live in wetlands and they should be havens for these gentle birds, not killing fields where they are slaughtered for fun. Can you please post and share this video so that all your compassionate, caring supporters will be informed about this needless slaughter and hopefully take action. Once informed people can send an email, make a phone call to politicians and join with thousands of Victorians to Ban Duck Shooting Forever. No compassionate, caring person could watch this video and not be horrified and appalled at how this little, gentle, defenceless duck ended its life. The government should be promoting and supporting nature-based tourism in all these regional and remote areas as this will provide jobs, support small businesses and ensure the long term profitablity and sustainability for regional communities, all of which are struggling in today’s world. Each of us has a voice and as shown by young people like Greta Thunberg and Malala we can change the world. This special message is written on behalf of Davina Duck and her three children Dixie, Dee and Dilley and all voiceless and defenceless native waterbirds and wildlife. Ban duck shooting forever.                                                                                                                                                                                          — Barbara Devine CONTACT LIST FOR POLITICIANS Please contact your Victorian Labor MPs in both the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament (you can find their details here — https://parliament.vic.gov.au/about/electorates), send them the link to the above footage (https://www.duck.org.au/breaking-news/) and ask that they immediately ban this obscenely cruel ‘sport’. Insist that duck shooting be included in the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions — whether 5km from home or not. Killing for the sake of killing is not ‘sport, recreation or fun’. Minister for Agriculture, Mary-Anne Thomas, reception.thomas@minstaff.vic.gov.au / phone: 8392 2261 Minister for the Environment, Lily D’Ambrosio, lily.dambrosio@parliament.vic.gov.au / phone: 9637 9504 The Acting Premier, Hon. James Merlino, james.merlino@parliament.vic.gov.au / phone: 9651 1222 PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING Remind these politicians of the Vision and Purpose of their Animal Welfare Action Plan as they have obviously never read the Plan or it was simply a PR exercise and lots of spin.   Vision:  A Victoria that fosters the caring and respectful   treatment of animals. Purpose:   To ensure Victoria continues to improve animal   welfare and is well respected globally for animal welfare   practices. The Humane Society International has publicly condemned the Victorian Labor government:  “Allowing this activity to continue would be an affront to   conservation and contravene the commitments made in   Victoria’s Animal Welfare Action Plan, tarnishing the stated   aim for Victoria to be respected globally for its animal   welfare  practices.” “The love of all living creatures is the most notable attribute of man.” — Charles Darwin

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State by state

Victorian Response Plan For Wildlife Impacted By Fire, Updated

Share this page Wildlife impacted by fire THE DEPARTMENT OF Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) is the lead agency responsible for managing wildlife impacted by fire in accordance with the Victorian Response Plan for Wildlife Impacted by Fire . The Response Plan has been reviewed and updated in consultation with the wildlife welfare sector in response to the 2019–20 bushfire season. Wildlife in areas impacted by fire can be disoriented, smoke-affected and dehydrated. Some may also be suffering from burns and other injuries. Following a fire, it is expected that injured and uninjured wildlife will be seen moving through and near the fire ground. Members of the public are urged to take care if attempting to help injured or distressed animals outside of the fire area.  Improper rescue techniques by untrained or inexperienced persons can cause further distress or injury to the animal and put the rescuer at risk.  Motorists should watch out for displaced animals along roadsides. During a fire, the Incident Controller will determine if a wildlife response is required. Fire grounds are dangerous, even after the fire front has passed. Individuals, wildlife rescue and rehabilitation groups must not self-deploy to search for wildlife. Victorian Response Plan for Wildlife Impacted by Fire The purpose of the Victorian Response Plan for Wildlife Impacted by Fire (the Plan) is to define how DELWP, its partner agencies, contractors and volunteers will respond to wildlife welfare arising from fire. The Plan also defines how this will occur under Victoria’s emergency management arrangements. Victorian Response Plan for Wildlife Impacted by Fire (PDF) Victorian Response Plan for Wildlife Impacted by Fire (DOC)

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State by state

Colonial ‘bounty’ Killing Of Native Animals Continues In Victoria

Share this page Dingos are being slaughtered by hunters for money in a Victorian program that echoes colonial removal of much native wildlife in Australia. And people thought we are better. Here’s a media release with visual proof sent to Victorian parliamentarians by the Association for Conservation of Australian Dingoes Inc. THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT recently announced a digitised, streamlined administrative process for ‘wild dog’ bounty applications and payment to hunters. These changes are clearly a cost saving device. The current bounty for so-called ‘wild dog’ scalps is $120.     AFCAD Inc. today slammed the refinement and continuation of the ‘wild dog’ bounty as a gross waste of public funds, as environmentally harmful, as unnecessary to the protection of farm stock, and as a policy that deceives the Victorian public. Rather than streamlining the administration of the bounty, it should be abandoned. Not to do so is serious misgovernance. The ‘wild dog’ myth As confirmed by recent ground-breaking genetic research, so-called ‘wild dogs’ in Victoria are dingoes, a native wildlife taxon. Incredibly, the bounty takes no account of the fact that dingoes and dingo dominant hybrids are considered Australia’s pre-eminent ecologists important for ecosystem health, and pure dingoes are listed as a threatened native species in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. 2021 research found that: …feral dogs have not established a self-sustaining population in the wild and that inter-breeding between dingoes and dogs may occur infrequently. Despite historical domestic dog introgression, the dingo population maintains a dingo dominant identity, even in southeastern Australia… Further: It is possible that widespread lethal control programs have increased the likelihood of dingo x dog hybridisation events and facilitating the spread of introgressed dog genes into the wider dingo population. (K. Cairns, M. Crowther, B. Nesbitt and M. Letnic, ‘The myth of wild dogs in Australia; are there any out there?’, Australian Mammalogy, CSIRO Publishing, 2021.) Against the best scientific advice, not only does the Victorian government persist in denying wildlife status to ecologically important dingo dominant hybrids, but, perversely, places a bounty on the head of both them and pure dingoes, even though the latter listed as a threatened native taxon in Victoria. The ‘wild dog’ bounty is an invitation to fraud Presently, recreational hunters are permitted to kill ecologically important dingo dominant hybrids (deemed ‘wild dogs’) over large areas of public estate beyond the specified areas of the state where the bounty applies. As a result, hunters can legally kill so-called ‘wild dogs’ (in reality including pure dingoes listed as threatened wildlife) in areas where the bounty does not apply, but they can then nevertheless easily and fraudulently present such scalps for bounty collection. The streamlining of the bounty arrangements will simply further facilitate such abuse. Farm stock losses to predation exaggerated Stock losses to dingo predation have been consistently exaggerated by the Victorian government and state Agriculture authorities, as well as extremists within the farming lobby (reflecting a backward colonial mindset).     Yet, official Victorian government stock loss data (obtained by AFCAD Inc. through Freedom of Information legislation) show that stock loss rates to ’wild dog’ predation in Victoria are tiny and have been for a long time. Departmental statements fail to inform the public (and perhaps even the Environment and Agriculture Ministers) that the absolute and relative stock losses, as a share of the Victorian sheep flock, from alleged ‘wild dog’ predation have remained at a very low level for 20 years.     In broad terms, sheep losses per million of the Victorian sheep flock over the past 20 years have varied within a range of between 100 and 200 sheep lost per million sheep. In absolute and relative terms, the losses are negligible. The bounty is simply unjustified in terms of farm stock protection and must be condemned for the public deception it relies upon and the ecological damage it incurs. Environmentally destructive hunting of dingoes condoned by Victorian government Left: Lily D’ Ambrosio – Victorian Minister for the EnvironmentRight: Mary Anne Thomas – Minister for Agriculture What is an ecosystem engineer? The Victorian Environment and Agriculture ministers must now acknowledge and take responsibility for the gross policy inconsistencies surrounding the misidentification of dingoes as ‘wild dogs’, and for the environmental damage incurred within Victorian ecosystems through the ‘wild dog’ bounty. The buck stops with them.     A particularly disturbing aspect of the perpetuation of the ‘wild dog’ bounty is that it encourages recreational hunters to kill dingoes in the mistaken belief that they are helping to remove an exotic invasive pest. They are in fact killing Victoria’s native apex predator and harming Victorian ecosystems. The Victorian government has been repeatedly appealed to by leading environmental scientists about the environmental harm incurred by current policy.      The images below (and at top) are of dingoes killed in Victoria by hunters. Bear in mind that dingoes are listed as a threatened native species in Victoria. The contradiction is shameful and incompetent. The Victorian government must: Immediately discontinue the ‘wild dog’ bounty; Immediately discontinue use of the term ‘wild dog’ as ecologically meaningless and recognise dingo dominant hybrids as wildlife Remove the existing wildlife unprotection order for dingoes Ban all hunting of dingoes in Victoria Send a clear message to hunters and hunting organisations that dingoes are protected wildlife and impose significant penalties for the hunting and killing of dingoes. The Ministers for the Environment and Agriculture can no longer claim ignorance on this issue. ……………………………………….. AFCAD is an incorporated association registered in the state of Victoria. Its purposes are the ‘Preservation and Conservation of Australian Dingoes and its habitat and ecosystems’ and its objectives include: ‘Encourage and facilitate legislative reform to ensure the protection and survival of the dingo in the wild’; ‘Encourage and facilitate government policy change to ensure the protection and survival of the dingo in the wild’; and ‘Inform and educate the public and government about the cultural, ecological and historical significance of the dingo and its conservation’

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canberra-kangaroo-cull-2021-crBrettClifton
Australian Capital Territory

How Canberra Tells You What To Think

MAIN IMAGE: © Brett Clifton. Share this page EVERY MAY MOTHER’S DAY or thereabouts, Canberra politicians, Labor, Green and Liberal, spoil the season by giving thumbs up to what they like to portray as an unremarkable slaughter of our national emblem in the nation’s capital. On public nature reserves, this involves shooting kangaroo families — mums and males — bashing pouch joeys to death, and bulldozing all their bodies into pits. Lost and bewildered older joeys flee, jump in front of cars or end at the mercy of dogs. Neighbouring residents can be traumatised by the carnage that continues every night for months. Already signed is a deal to continue the killing for another five years, with militarised contractors hunting in the suburbs for surviving animals. Unless it’s stopped by voters. It costs the public purse close to a million dollars annually. The real reason why this is happening? That’s still anyone’s guess. But Canberra nature park managers or politicians offer residents a revolving list of ‘facts’ on why the killing must happen. Their assertions are amplified by the local media. No questions asked. Few dissenting voices get a platform and if they are mentioned they are labelled ‘protesters’, ‘activists’, ‘animal rights advocates’ (heaven forbid) — anything other than just plain concerned citizens of Australia. I have watched this annual ritual for the past decade and sadly reported on it, and recently researched and wrote a book on the history, culture and legacy of Australia’s wildlife killing habits www.mariataylor.com.au. Canberrans are subject to the same narrative about kangaroos as the rest of the country. We’re all encouraged to agree and shrug. Elsewhere when a group is demonised prior to killing, it’s called propaganda. We must all think alike What we have is a dominant narrative on how to think about kangaroos. How to think is sold to the public in lockstep by economic interests (commercial kangaroo processors, grazier and farming lobbies) working with politicians and government power. Their perspective is supported or supplied by some applied ecologists and ‘pest’ management specialists, mostly taxpayer funded. What they all say is uncritically reported in most Australian media. You can hear this narrative any day of the week and it is on the upswing at the moment with a move in the United States Congress to ban the import of Australian kangaroo skin and meat. The EU is also being asked to consider bans. This pushback is portrayed by Australian officials and mainstream media outlets as an assault on a must-have export industry. The word ‘treasonous’ has been used. The remaining large kangaroos are now Australia’s most persecuted indigenous animal with an unchanging storyline to justify the extensive bloodshed. The world loves Skippy the bush kangaroo and he or she draws tourists by the planeload. This unique marsupial holds up one half of our national coat of arms —along with the equally unique emu — also a victim of mass persecution since settlement. Yet at home, we became a culture of silence and conformity that treats the kangaroo as either a pest or a product. We lead the world The treatment of native wildlife since colonial times has morphed in the past 70 years into the world’s biggest on-land wildlife slaughter of kangaroos, for their skins and meat and just for removal. Almost no Australians appear to know this. The much beloved koala — now on the brink of regional extinctions — suffered a similar savage slaughter for its fur coat up until the mid-1920s and has never recovered. The ACT may claim that its killing is somehow better because it is non-commercial, but the cull is very much part of that post-colonial value tradition. IMAGE: Supplied. What are those values? Disrespect and disinterest in understanding the contributions of native grazers in balanced ecosystems. And flat-out demonisation of any native animal that bothers agricultural businesses or sometimes other commercial interests, or ACT motorists. That starts with grazing kangaroos and wallabies, but also targets emus, wombats, dingos, eagles, other birds. Culturally, there is a direct line of thinking from colonial times. This thinking has become so embedded in the narrative that any claims about ‘too many’, and that our export nation and graziers need kangaroos to be killed, just gets an automatic nod from media organisations starting with the national broadcaster and seen throughout Australia’s highly-concentrated private press. Overseas visitors are amazed at the disrespect, while most Australians stay silent. The Canberra cull is related in cultural understanding and dog whistling ‘pest’ and ‘too many’. Now Canberra’s advising ecologists have pivoted to another compelling narrative that deflects enquiries: the story now is that all of ‘biodiversity’, which suddenly does not include kangaroos, benefits from the annual slaughter. Females with pouch-joeys and dependent young can be killed more freely under this framework in the ACT’s code of practice. PR relies on scientists This culture is across Australia — the commercial kangaroo industry has a very active PR operation and often relies on supporting voices that say ‘trust us, we’re scientists”.  ACT narratives have relied on similar claims of scientific insight.  Missing: reports about the role of all  kangaroo species in their ecosystems © Maria Taylor. Our native wildlife is much more valuable alive than dead. A new win-win narrative must highlight respect, ecological understanding and a decision to share our land. What’s missing? Any reporting about the benefits of coexistence and what that might look like. Missing is any reporting on research about the role of all kangaroo species in their ecosystems — what do they contribute to healthy grassy woodlands? They co-evolved with those habitats. Equally missing are voices that tell us what kangaroos and other wildlife could contribute to Australia, to Canberra and to farm economies through tourism and related spending.

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ACT-annual-slaughter-Feb2020
Australian Capital Territory

Act Government’s Shameful War On Kangaroos Thankfully Over For 2020

Share this page 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:  vegetation on ACT reserves is more rich and diverse with some kangaroos than none;  vegetation on ACT reserves is just as rich and diverse with three kangaroos per hectare as one per hectare; and  no ACT reserves appears to be inhabited by more than three kangaroos per hectare.

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Australian Capital Territory

Killers Stalk Act Suburban Woodlands

Share this page IT’S CRYING OUT for a sociological study. As hired killers with military training hunt survivors in their last refuge in a major city following a 12-year campaign, that city and the country remain mostly silent. While gunshots echo nightly from the woodlands of Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie, Farrer Ridge, hardly anyone, apparently, says it is untoward that the national icon, the kangaroo, is being gunned down in the suburbs of the national capital, within a quarter kilometre of people’s homes. Overseas visitors and observers on the other hand can barely believe the disrespect and bloodshed meted out to Australia’s best-recognised native icon. Imagine, they say, if American authorities were shooting down the bald eagle in the suburbs of Washington DC. Or the English — who of course started all this in Australia with colonisation — went on a mission to severely ‘manage’ with death, their national symbol the predatory lion (a remnant of empire days). Australians, who are fortunate to still have noticeable populations of native animals, are beguiled into looking the other way by a propaganda story. Broadcast with the assistance of mainstream media, that story is repeated by state employees and politicians. Critically, it is supported by what a closer look might call ‘voodoo’ science. A disorienting cloud of numbers and pronouncements. A matter of belief. READ ALSO: How Canberra tells you what to think. By Maria Taylor. The beliefs and ideas came with the colonial settlement of Australia, sweeping away and transforming the nature of the country for a European pastoral economy, for sheep farming in particular. Kangaroo species had to go because they ate grass. Those beliefs and convictions morphed in the national capital into today’s death-dealing ‘management’ in the suburban reserves to achieve a farm-like vanishing low number of native grazers — the bloodletting defended by politicians armed with ‘expert’ excuses of saving biodiversity of all things. Canberra Nature Park Mount Majura: closed to public. Author supplied. Stalking the wooded hills of Canberra Environmental scientist and long-time wildlife defender Frankie Seymour reports here what those bearing witness to the Canberra slaughter have seen and found in June 2021. THERE ARE NOW hardly any kangaroos left in any of the reserves of the Canberra Nature Park. The survivors of 12 years of annual slaughter, in their last refuges on Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie, Farrer Ridge and East Jerrabomberra, are now being hunted by military trained personnel using high tech military equipment. This is a wildlife tragedy entering its final phase.   The survivors of 12 years of annual slaughter, in their last refuges on Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie, Farrer Ridge and East Jerrabomberra, are now being hunted by military trained personnel using high tech military equipment. This is a wildlife tragedy entering its final phase.   The direct shooting both on and off reserves, is not the only death facing Canberra’s suburban kangaroos. The kangaroos’ off-reserve habitat is rapidly being developed for exclusive human use. Because the reserves are fragmented by busy arterial roads, huge numbers of kangaroos die of car strike. Because the reserves are on degraded farmland, most are surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. Many kangaroos, fleeing the shooting, are impaled on the barbed wire and die the most horrible death imaginable. On some Canberra grassland reserves, kangaroos are now being excluded by kangaroo-proof fencing, [much like the landscape scale exclusion fencing that indiscriminately kills a wide swath of wildlife now being taken up by some NSW graziers]. The shooters seem to have no compunction about crushing what is left of the native vegetation and biodiversity driving their heavy vehicles off-road around the reserves. Further exclusion of grazing kangaroos and other native plants and animals is resulting from an explosion weeds on their habitat: recently thorny saffron thistles. The irony is that the weed invasions could have been prevented by leaving the kangaroos, at their natural densities, to manage the vegetation of the reserves as evolution designed them to do. How they hunt in the woodlands  Red dot sights suffer targeting inaccuracy and especially in cold weather There is not much chance of ‘clean kill’ shooting this year. The shooters seem to have decided to shoot in almost total darkness, relying on red dot sights to target their victims. Red dot sights have been found to be subject to point-of-aim deviation and to be especially inaccurate in cold weather. Chances of hitting the head or the heart with the first shot, as required by the Code of Practice, are much reduced by this targeting method. At Mount Ainslie, the shooting area is woodland where it is unlikely a shooter could ever get a full body view of his target. So far this year, we have found two very young kangaroos, apparently left behind by the clean-up truck, both shot in the eye, one at East Jerrabomberra and one at Mount Ainslie. One wonders how these two kangaroo children managed to be killed so “cleanly”. One suspects, being small, they were captured and held down while they were executed. The location of one of the youngsters, on the side of Northcott Drive just outside the Campbell Park offices, suggests that the killers are doing some of their shooting very close to public roads, open reserves, off-reserve habitat, suburbs and workplaces, endangering humans as well as wildlife. Bullets can travel three km; and ricochets can occur in woodland. Shooting near public roads is not new for the ACT government’s hired guns. From 2015 to 2020, shooting at Isaacs Ridge was routinely occurring within 20–30 metres of Mugga Lane.   Apparently, this is the new normal. If other species are shot, the government will simply deny it, as they have denied other impacts of this program. Editor’s note: Sweetie, pictured here and the daughter of one of our resident kangaroo mothers, is growing up before my eyes. We have known her from a pouch infant. She is one beautiful face of the co-existence with other animals, native and domestic, that brightens our days. Half-grown, Sweetie would be about the same age as the

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Australian Capital Territory

Letter To Editor And Canberra Public

Share this page RELATED STORY: Killers stalk ACT suburban woodlands AWPC committee member Maria Taylor had this letter published in the Canberra Times on 18 July 2021 after another, yearly, brutal hunt against kangaroo families in the national capital.  We wonder how it plays to the international community.

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Australian Capital Territory

Mid July 2021: Canberra Succeeds In Kangaroo Wipeout?

Share this page KANGAROOS IN URBAN CANBERRA ARE NOW FUNCTIONALLY EXTINCT THE ACT GOVERNMENT claims that 1,505 kangaroos have been killed on Canberra Nature Park reserves by the government’s mercenary ex-military killers this year. Notably, the government has not given a breakdown of how many were killed on each reserve. Here is what we know from this year’s observation and monitoring: • Before the killing began, there were not more than about thirty kangaroos on Farrer Ridge Nature Reserve and not more than forty on East Jerrabomberra Nature Reserve (although there was a larger mob on the adjoining Jerrabomberra Creek Reserve). • As of yesterday, when the government announced the end of the slaughter, there had been no shooting at Farrer Ridge or East Jerrabomberra Nature Reserves for five weeks. • The government shooters shot at East Jerrabomberra only four times throughout the whole killing season. • There are currently only three kangaroos left on Farrer Ridge Reserve, and none to be found on East Jerrabomberra though, as always, others will dribble in from farms and other reserves in due course. APA spokesperson, Robyn Soxsmith, notes, “We thought the reason the government kept the reserves closed for so long after the shooting had clearly ceased was because they were waiting for a few refugees to wander back during the last couple of weeks, just so they could have a last little mini bloodbath before the end. IMAGE: Zoe-Atherfold, iStock “Thankfully, that hasn’t happened, and we who watched those reserves every night for 43 cold nights can get on with our lives again. Tragically, if the government really has somehow found 1,505 kangaroos to kill, those 1,505 kangaroos no longer have lives to get on with.” Based on these known figures from two of the closed reserves, it seems likely that most of those killed this year were killed in the “research laboratories” of Mulligans Flat and Goorooyarroo Nature Reserves. However, given the scale of slaughter that has taken place on those laboratories every one of the last thirteen years, it is doubtful kangaroos, even on those huge reserves, could have made the 1,505. Perhaps local farmers are happy to let the government shooters supplement the shortfall from their properties — but even kangaroos on rural properties are scarce these days. Ms Soxsmith concludes:      “Kangaroos across  Australia   are  in precipitous decline, and   Canberra’s urban reserves are   now functionally extinct. There         are simply not enough kangaroos   left for them to carry out their   critical ecological role as a   keystone species.” Frankie Seymour, a lifelong advocate for animals, an environmental scientist and a former member (for nearly 18 years) of the ACT government’s own Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, concurs:  “Why else would they be       killing kangaroos three to four   times faster than it is   biologically possible for    their populations to recover?”

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