Australian Wildlife Protection Council

Out of the mouths of babes

AWPC — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 04:56:44 +0000

By AWPC
September 25, 2026

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Out of the mouths of babes

Canberra teenager Henry Baczynski wrote the following excellent, and sad, report on the annual kangaroo slaughter in the nation’s capital — now pushing to 50,000 lives cruelly extinguished – on nature reserves! – since 2009 with bogus rationale and at great expense to the taxpayer. This was a school-based assignment to profile a matter he cared deeply about and needed to protest. Henry urges Australian citizens to urgently help the few remaining kangaroos in the Australian Capital Territory — where the authorities also persecutes other wildlife. Here’s his story.

Allow me to paint you a grim picture. Imagine that you are a joey, nestled in the comfort of your mother’s pouch, you watch curiously as sun rays illuminate the vast grass fields. You have never ventured outside the comfort of your mother’s pouch, but the world just seems so welcoming. You start to move, edging closer towards a world full of life until suddenly, you find that you are outside the pouch. Your mother looks at you with pride and gently starts to guide you, showing you how to move like your brothers and sisters. It takes a while, but eventually, you are able to jump, and you feel free. As day turns to night your ears perk up as you hear what you can only describe as a rumbling in the distance, a rumbling that is growing in strength. Suddenly, blinding rays of light shoot from a fast-moving object, with mysterious figures populating it. The lights scan the landscape and are followed by loud bangs.

You watch helplessly as your brothers and sisters fall to the ground motionless. Your mother urges you to run, but you can’t move; fear overtakes you, and you find yourself wishing that you had never left the comfort of your mother’s pouch. Another bang, and this time it is your mother who falls to the ground. Grief overtakes you as you realize all that you have lost. You climb into your dead mother’s pouch, noticing that the familiar warmth radiating from her body is no longer present and is instead replaced with an unbearable cold. Some time passes until you hear movement in the distance, the sound approaches until it stops right next to you. A hand reaches into the pouch and aggressively yanks you out, stripping you of any remaining comfort that you possessed. You look up and see the same mysterious figure that was on that object, the same mysterious figure that took everything from you. You struggle helplessly, desperately trying to get away, but it’s no use. The figure raises an object above their head, and they proceed to bludgeon you mercilessly. Your last moments are pure agony until darkness takes you, and you are no more.

What I have just described to you is the sad reality of the Annual Canberra kangaroo cull from a joey’s perspective. Every year, the ACT government contracts shooters to kill thousands of Eastern Grey Kangaroos across many supposedly protected nature reserves, including here on Red Hill where today I’ll talk about how the research that backs the Kangaroo culls is flawed and how you can get involved to help bring an end to this cruel slaughter.

The ACT government justifies this slaughter by claiming a large mob of Kangaroos poses a significant threat to endangered species like the Grassland Earless Dragon. They argue that the optimum range of grass height required for a healthy ecosystem is 5-15cm, and Kangaroos threaten this balance by overgrazing. However, inspections of Canberra nature reserves reveal that this 15cm grass height limit is often exceeded, which is likely due to the lack of Kangaroos present. Furthermore, during the time that the ACT government has killed Canberra’s kangaroos, the Earless Dragon has been uplisted to ‘critically endangered’. This shows that this claim is not true, and yet the ACT government continues to spend over a quarter of a million dollars a year to continue this atrocity.

Additionally, the method that the government uses to calculate the size of Canberra’s kangaroo populations is also flawed, and typically overstates its size. This has led to even more Kangaroos being needlessly killed, with a total of around 50,000 Eastern Grey Kangaroos killed since the cull was established in 2009. This issue directly impacts me and many others, including my school community, as we are privileged to live near reserves like Red Hill. I remember when I used to go on walks with my family through Red Hill, and feeling immense amounts of joy when I saw the large families of Kangaroos. Joy that I can no longer experience, after the government included the Red Hill Nature Reserve in the cull in 2022. As a result, a total of 1730 kangaroos from Red Hill have been slaughtered, essentially wiping out the majority of this population. This has caused a deep sadness within me, as whenever I am near or think about Red Hill, I cannot help but think about all of the Kangaroos that suffered unnecessarily as a result of the ACT government’s lack of respect for our wildlife.

If we do nothing, the cull will continue with no end in sight; that is why we must work together to end it, and here are some ways you can get involved. First, you can follow the Save Canberra’s Kangaroos socials and attend any of their protest events. Additionally, you can represent Save Canberra’s Kangaroos at other events, like I did when I joined the Australian Koala Foundation’s march to Parliament House in 2024. Second, you could create protest media such as this artwork my brother and I made in 2023, or create protest texts such as these that you could publish through media outlets, such as letters to the editor. Third, you could repeatedly write letters to your local government members to express your opposition to the issue. Finally, you could either start or sign a petition that aims to end the Canberra kangaroo cull.

In summary, I have showcased to you how hideously cruel and unnecessary the ACT government’s annual kangaroo cull is, and the ways you can protest against it. I have shown you how the cull would be from a joey’s perspective, and how both the reasoning behind and the counting for the Kangaroo cull is deeply flawed. This concludes my speech, and I hope together we can help save Canberra’s kangaroos before it is too late.

Henry Baczynski (Year 9 English Assessment)

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Terri Irwin and Others Tell Stories Of Co-Existing With All Wildlife, Nature

AWPC — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:22:54 +0000

Terri Irwin

Source: Instagram

By Maria Taylor, AWPC member and author
August 3, 2026

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Terri Irwin And Others Tell Stories of co-existing with All Wildlife, Nature

Co-existence and respect for our fellow species, sharing the land and food, is a pathway of hope and learning to restore our natural home – now degraded and increasingly dangerous – while we hope to lose lethal ‘management’ of native species.

Win-win co-existence with Australian wildlife

In my recent book exposing the colonial destruction of the native Australian landscape and its wildlife: ‘Injustice – hidden in plain sight the war on Australia nature….’ I shone a light on the lack of care and understanding for native species that has allowed lethal wildlife management, read extensive killing, to continue as a ‘normal’ way of behaving. Australians still look away from the world’s largest contemporary land-based wildlife slaughter – the annual massacre of hundreds of thousands of kangaroos of various species shot for meat and leather trades, or shot just to remove them as happens every year in the nation’s so-called bush capital.

As well as kangaroo species, dingos, wombats, possums, bats, birds, marine wildlife, all remain ‘managed’ by gun, poison and net. And that’s just in the vertebrate animal kingdom. Human impact on native vegetation and on the insect world integral to maintaining ecosystems has been immense and worrying.

As balance to this tale of woe, for the concluding Sharing chapter of Injustice I talked with some trail-blazing Australians who have taken the path of beneficial (for all) co-existence and sharing the land with wildlife on their farm production properties. Following is an excerpt from the book: a chat with Terri Irwin who, with her late husband Steve, has done much to encourage respect and compassion for Australian native wildlife.

The chapter in Injustice also reports the experience of Charles Massie, author of ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’ and his exploration of regenerative farming methods that heal the land from post-colonial destructive practices while bringing in good farm income. His book includes many case studies. More from Charlie below.

https://mariataylor.com.au/

Visit with Terri Irwin

Source: Instagram

Terri Irwin, along with her late husband Steve, did much to popularise and say it’s okay to love Australian wildlife – notably the slithery and snappy variety. Terri is still doing this work. In recent years she spent much of her time filming segments for a television program called Crikey! It’s the Irwins, along with her children Bindi and Robert, while working alongside some 500 staff at the family-owned Australia Zoo. The zoo now houses more than 1,200 animals on about 1,000 acres of Sunshine Coast bushland.

Terri wanted to talk about the still unresolved and unequal relationship between humans on production properties and the common wildlife, particularly kangaroos. We talk about her family’s conservation grazing properties in central Queensland and in the Queensland gulf country. Both properties are living experiments, in that they allow the natural wildlife – from dingo to emu to kangaroo – to live peacefully.

In central Queensland, between St George and Roma, neighbours may still be shooting kangaroos, poisoning dingos, or fencing emus from their path to food and water, but not on Mourachan. Steve and Terri allowed the property to revegetate naturally after they acquired it in the early 2000s. An unsuccessful attempt at establishing young river red gums indicated that regrowth was the easiest path. It proved too difficult to keep the water up to planted trees during drought.

The plan has been to increase the diversity of plant life and extend ecosystems. Mourachan lies in the brigalow (acacia woodland) belt – a landscape that has suffered extensive clearing. The family is now managing118,000 acres (47,753 hectares) plus a neighbouring block. The properties continue to commercially run cattle.

Steve and Terri also started to engage the neighbours to document the presence of the rare Woma python. That worked out wonderfully, but what was disheartening was how much kangaroo shooting was going on. That’s when they learned about Australia’s industrial-scale kangaroo meat and skin industry, and how extremely poorly regulated it is. “I’ve seen really sad things with kangaroos,” she tells me.

“Nobody is following these people around to see how they are killing the animals. There is also a sense if you are a landowner that you can treat wildlife in any way that you see fit without requesting permission or a permit.”

Rebalance to nature with wildlife-friendly fencing, trees, longer grass

Rebalancing the property with nature required removing some of the property’s features, and expanding others. For wildlife, that included removing kilometres of old fencing, or modifying it to wildlife-friendly fencing – a project that Steve Irwin started and convinced the neighbours would be okay.

Wombat in Southern NSW ---- Maria Taylor photo

Wildlife-friendly fencing ensures bats, possums and gliders or birds no longer getting caught on the top strand. And the bottom strand is not hurting animals ducking under the fence, as wombats must do to get across the countryside and kangaroos also prefer ducking under. Terri says opening the country from bad fencing has worked for two decades on their properties and she’s really keen on changes like that.

Regeneration of trees and shrubs was a key factor for good ground cover, and went hand in hand with habitat restoration. It also helped move on the kangaroo shooters. That was when the vegetation reached a point that the shooters could no longer see the kangaroos as they would on a cleared paddock.

Terri still sees the effects of cleared paddocks and set stocking in the neighbourhood: “This attracts kangaroos, because essentially you are building a golf course with constant new grass. ‘Wow, we’ll come to your house!’

“On our property, we have different vegetation areas, some grassed areas, some treed areas. Less of a monoculture still allows good beef yields while inviting less roos,” while creating other biodiverse habitat.

Live and let live co-existence with good income

Kirra the dingo.

Jennifer Parkhurst photo

The property has a complete live-and-let-live policy for native animals, while also running 300 head of cattle that bring in comparable income per head to other traditionally-run properties. Terri tells me they always have adequate grass, partly thanks to the vegetation cover they re-established. The contrast is most noticeable when neighbouring properties have suffered badly in dry years. Terri says the wildlife populations all now have stable numbers. The birdlife is fantastic.

Pivot to adventure tourism

The next step with the help of online marketing was to introduce wildlife tourism, billed as outback adventures or photography expeditions, with food and accommodation laid on. The venture showed that ecotourism brings in good money that can be reinvested in the land. Websites and social media have made marketing much easier for country people.

“People will spend thousands of dollars for an outback experience where they can see this wildlife. Seventy percent of international tourists want to see our wildlife. We know in Africa it really works – people protect the wildlife and have livestock and when people come on your property to see the wildlife, they pay a token fee.

“Where we are the emus are so sweet, they don’t even protect the chicks from you. They’re just really cruisy. You can go out and see the emus and kangaroos and dingos.

“Because we don’t shoot them, you’ll see them.”

Iconic wildlife in this woodland environment includes emus and Eastern Grey kangaroos, wallaroos and swamp wallabies, monitor goannas and other lizards, many bird species common along Eastern Australia, including the predator birds often shot elsewhere. The dingos allowed to co-exist on Mourachan cause no problems with introduced stock.

Elsewhere dingos have been labelled ‘wild dogs’ along with escaped human pets and working dogs and are commonly poisoned with horrendously cruel 1080 or shot by government agents, hunters and landholders to accommodate what sheep and cattle farmers think they want.

“In my experience,” says Terri, “where we have left the kangaroos and dingos, if you fly over it, it looks like an island. Everything around it has been decimated but our property is always healthy and we have roos, dingos and also cattle. Neighbours have come and asked to agist cattle on our property. I find it ironic because if their methods of extermination of certain types of wildlife and their husbandry are all working why are they asking the person with kangaroos and dingos and conservation methods to agist? The grass is always greener on my side of the fence, literally.”

Return of the wildlife and biodiversity in southern NSW

In harmony with the Irwin’s experiences, Charlie Massie told me that on his Merino sheep wool-growing property in southern NSW, as a result of his regenerative farming and land care practices, many similar to what Terri Irwin described, the wildlife on his block has come back – both a delight and an indicator of healthy biodiversity and healthy country.

This is accomplished by strict rotational grazing and conservative stock management. The resulting more natural landscape is not grazed down to ground level, and therefore seldom exhibits the golf-course-greens attraction of new pick for passing marsupials.

He described both the return of swamp wallabies and the biodiversity networks that are not so quickly seen. On one early morning survey across the countryside, he said he marvelled at myriad spiderwebs, still wet with dew and glistening between the grass clumps. The spiders catch flies, grasshoppers, and other insects. They tell this landholder that the biodiversity on the property is returning to healthy landscape functions above and below the soil line. “The fact we no longer get regular devastating wingless grasshopper plagues is another indicator of increasing health,” he said.

Restoring respect and eco understanding that First Australians know

One research area that has been seriously neglected is the study of how native animals maintain the natural environment for themselves and for other species. Indigenous communities understood this much better than European settlers. First Australians understood all living beings and entities have equal rights and roles in the environment – creating the balance supporting all life.

In contrast, the human newcomers in the past 200 years have focused on overturning the natural order to establish European-style farming and grazing, bringing along their exotic animals for farming and for hunting. The fox didn’t swim here. We now know anecdotally that native birds and also marsupial species sustain their country with their droppings and seed spread. Kangaroos have been observed to graze in patterns through low and high vegetation that suits their grassland fellow species.

A tip for sheep graziers on what the natives can teach about land health came from zoologist Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe via field work in western NSW in the 1960s and ‘70s. When the kangaroos left it was time to shift the sheep and spell the paddock. The property owner did this in wet years and dry years. The researchers reported that the property retained good saltbush and native grass and good sheep production at times when neighbours were destocking.

Working with the natural world is the theme of a recent media essay with focus on the climate changes bearing down on us all. The biodiversity/ecosystem catastrophes and extinctions we have also wrought will be hazardous as well to the pleasant lifestyles a lot of humans still enjoy.

Thomas Crowther reported in the Guardian that in 2019 he published in the top research journal Science, the conclusion that natural forest restoration was the best climate change solution Link

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/ may/24/could-nature-itself-hold-the-solution-to-climate-change

His team received pushback from people who argued emission reduction has to be the top priority to mitigate climate change. Restoring forests takes time. He agreed but said forest restoration was the best option for improving the livelihoods and wellbeing of people, too. The research backed this argument with international examples of communities working with the natural environment in win-win ways, for example with re-introduction of wildlife species to restore the natural balance of eco-systems. Eco tourism also featured as successfully bringing incomes to communities while they sustain their natural environment and its inhabitants.

We’re seeing both directions in the Australian examples we have here. And there is more. Along with the co-existence wins demonstrated on the Irwin and Massie rural properties and elsewhere – like on rural residential blocks near cities (eg my own and on neighbours – we can testify) – Australians have also started down the path of re-wilding and bio-system reconstruction. Some featured in city-based stories published by Michael Dahlstrom of yahoo.com. Here’s an excerpt from one story and another is linked below.

Instant forests offer climate cover for humans and others

Seven tiny forests have been built at schools in NSW… and more to come along the coast north. Others have been planted on council land, private property and at a nursing home.

Climate change is making cities hotter, affecting human health, and driving up electricity costs to keep dwellings cool. Within 12 months, the air temperature can be 5.5 degrees cooler inside the forests, and 3.5 degrees cooler in the surrounding area.

Groundswell Collective, a Sydney-based non-profit group, is using Japanese technology to rapidly cultivate tiny forests, with growth rates of up to six metres a year. Its founder, Anna Noon, told Yahoo News that costs are relatively low, averaging $28,000, compared with the $1,400 it costs a council gardening team to buy and plant one street tree using their modern utes, which can cost upwards of $140,000.

“You could probably build five of these forests for the cost of a Dodge Ram,” she quipped.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/28000-solution-as-residents-prepare-for-dangerous-weather-problem-in-aussie-suburbs-063333318.html

One other story

https://au.news.yahoo.com/australia-hailed-model-for-the-world-after-20-million-coastline-transformation-022232998.html

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HOW CANBERRA MANAGES OUR NATIONAL TREASURES

AWPC — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 02:05:52 +0000

July 10, 2026

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HOW CANBERRA MANAGES OUR NATIONAL TREASURES

Canberra resident and Australian Wildlife Protection Council member Chris Doyle is reporting on the Australian Capital Territory’s lethal ‘management’ programs for wildlife in the national capital and surrounds that continue despite strong push-back from outraged local citizens and Australians nationally who have heard. Stay tuned for reports on dingo management and, with a possible good news pivot, recent wombat persecution. Today, Chris exposes the unjustified annual slaughter of Canberra’s kangaroo families, again underway. And asks for your help.

Radio call: “Skippy to Bogie – staging is set - it’s time to zero”

Whenever I hear those words, I feel a sense of dread for what is about to come. For those that care for the kangaroos that live in and around the Canberra Nature Park, in the ACT, zero means one thing. It’s 6.00pm, and that means it is time to start the nighttime slaughter of kangaroo families on Australian Capital Territory (ACT) nature reserves scattered through Canberra.

This will continue every night from Monday through to Thursday for the duration of a kangaroo killing program that has taken place since 2009. The 2026 ‘management’ program began on June 9 and will go through to July 31. This year 3,633 healthy Eastern Grey kangaroos are on a government desktop-count target list in 15 nature reserves… The kangaroos’ sin? Eating grass. Wallabies and other kangaroo breeds in reserves are not out of danger.

ACT government bureaucrats and politicians claim this slaughter is necessary to protect native grasslands and woodlands, some tagged endangered, from ‘overgrazing’. Yet, sometimes, on these very same reserves after the killing, hard-hooved cattle are introduced for so-called ‘ecological grazing’. In other reserves the use of ‘ecological burns’ are then used to focus on improving the habitat for threatened plants and animals.

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) notes: ACT decisionmakers appear unaware of kangaroos’ innate ecological management of these lands where they evolved with the other endemic species and with the native ecosystem. Observations include that the organic droppings of these herbivores fertilise the soil and spread seed, that they never, unless confined, graze one patch of grassland as low as sheep for example before moving on, while also leaving a pattern of low and tall grasses and tussocks that benefit other natives on these grasslands. Citizens lucky enough to share land with kangaroos can attest to this.

Animal welfare at ground zero

Calling this slaughter a ‘conservation cull’ frames a cruel, brutal and always lethal program – an annual deliberate measure that inflicts pain and suffering on thousands of kangaroo families. A few weeks ago, at the Pinnacle Nature Reserve, kangaroo defenders arrived and heard the shooting of kangaroos taking place. Incidentally, it was during a fierce rainstorm that minimises the accuracy of any shooting mandated to aim for the head or heart.

Just hours earlier, they had been watching a kangaroo family group: the young at-foot joeys were hyper aware, knowing something was coming and were nervously staying close to their mothers. The shooting began and the bullets decimated this family group. Under current ‘best practice’ pouch joeys and those young at-foot that are caught would have either been bludgeoned to death with a blow to the base of the skull or stunned, immediately followed by decapitation by severing the head from the body with a sharp blade.

And this is what they call ‘conservation’.

The AWPC has a long history of opposing and exposing Australia’s persecution of kangaroos nationally with information and campaigns. The organisation supports and applauds all kangaroo defenders and deplores the violence perpetrated on Canberra Nature Reserves. The ACT program shamefully adds to the wide-ranging destruction of the animal that holds up one side of the national coat-of-arms. Let’s not forget that this country continues to carry out the world’s biggest on-land wildlife slaughter with the national kangaroo ‘harvest’ for skins and meat.

How you can help, handy contacts list linked

There are several kangaroo advocacy groups in Canberra and here are some of the ways that you can help.

If able to, join in monitoring reserves during the killing program. The brief is simple: be present, observe, document what you can, so we can let the ACT government know that people are paying attention. Direct messaging our colleagues and friends at Animal Liberation ACT and other defender groups is one way. Refer to our handy ‘contacts contacts list linked here. Contacts List

Public pressure matters and showing up sends a clear message that many people do not support this violence against kangaroos.

Politicians need to hear directly from members of the community.

Stand up with us in opposing the killing of kangaroo families, send an email to the ACT Environment Minister today and demand an end to this cruelty: Orr@act.gov.au . Tell the Minister that you oppose the killing of our wildlife, and specifically her government’s cruel and unjustified kangaroo cull (you might use some of the information above including kangaroos’ ecological role).

Our unique native wildlife, our national treasures, deserve community protection, not persecution.

Writing to Members of the ACT Assembly in the electorates on the contacts list will also assist as will outreach to local media.

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NATIVE ANIMALS UNDER INTENSE FIRE: DO WE CARE?

AWPC — Thu, 21 May 2026 02:26:37 +0000

Gang Gang Cockatoos

photo: Shutterstock

By Maria Taylor (see end for author note)
May 21, 2026

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NATIVE ANIMALS UNDER INTENSE FIRE: DO WE CARE?

The belated release of the 2021 federal State of the Environment report offered a grim picture of the state of Australia’s native biodiversity – decline, loss and poor ecosystem management are the major findings, along with the current lack of factoring in impacts of climate change on ecosystems and habitats.

The report found that the number of Australian threatened plant and animal species has increased by more than 200 between 2016 and 2021 to almost 2000 (1,918 in June 2021 up from 1,774 in 2016) with Gang-gang cockatoos and a northern hopping-mouse most recently joining this list of concern and shame.

More than a third of Australia’s eucalypt woodlands have been extensively cleared, and worse figures are reported for some other major vegetation groups

According to the state of environment report, “within 20 years, another seven Australian mammals and ten Australian birds – such as the King Island brown thornbill and the orange-bellied parrot – will be extinct unless management is greatly improved.” The report recommends that “Australia needs better and entirely new approaches to environmental management”.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/07/19/state-of-the-environment--the-findings.html

Australia tops rate of mammalian extinctions

With colonial/settler impacts on the natural environment in the past 230 years, Australia has the dubious distinction of owning the world’s highest rate of mammalian extinctions. This is not accidental or just due to the predations of imported cats and foxes on small native animals as we are often told. It is very much the outcome of both colonial and post-colonial practices, traditions and beliefs in a new nation dedicated to exporting ‘resources’ that include sentient animals badged as commodities.

At stake now is not only the fate of endangered species but also that of so-called ‘common’ Australian species that are not yet on a threatened list. They are on the hidden front-line of a national tradition of persecuting, financially exploiting, and removing native wildlife that is inconvenient to business interests deemed vital to the economy, underpinned by the thinking of a colonial enterprise.

Beliefs and traditions guiding wildlife management

The beliefs and traditions of western colonialism can be called a religion in the sense of ‘beliefs to live by’. In parallel, the normative ethics and practices of wildlife ‘management’ stem from western European philosophical and agricultural traditions, not least a nation-building commitment to private property and extensive land-owner rights. Resident wildlife and the immediate natural environment are treated as owned property with no rights.

The British also embedded an empire-building biological science tradition dedicated to developing the colonies – with imports like wool sheep – as back paddocks to the motherland. In Australia as a result, applied ecology and related wildlife management priorities have kept strong links to the interests and beliefs of sheep farmers and other agricultural and economic enterprises considered important to the new nation of Australia.

Christian beliefs came with the new nation. Contemporary wildlife management in Australia (and New Zealand), with a frequent pivot to lethal tools, may seem unremarkable to those who accept Christian teachings revolve around ‘dominion’ or domination by humans over nature and other species – in contrast to the emerging and attractive Christian view of humans playing a stewardship role to the natural world and its fauna and flora.

Stewardship is closer to the worldview of Australia’s First Nations. Indigenous knowledge views ‘Country’ – the Australian land and everything on it, sentient and not – as interconnected and with mutual responsibilities. For those schooled in the western tradition, it’s akin to the biological concept of the natural web-of-life that underpins societal existence.

In their new book ‘Songlines, first knowledges’ Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly write: [The] knowledge carried in the Songlines [also known as Dreaming tracks] decrees that humans are equal with all things animate and inanimate. Together we form part of a web, in which each component sustains the land…. Every single thing has a place and a kinship with humans.”

The dramatic loss of Australian biodiversity is linked to the background of beliefs and values that came with colonial settlement and a history of dispossession and disrespect for the unique continent and its fauna and flora (paralleling the dispossession of the indigenous people themselves) on behalf of a wholesale landscape makeover to European ideals and profit-making developments. Native animals became badged as pest or product, or recreational killing targets.

This hidden history and its blood -soaked contemporary legacy forms the subject of my recent book ‘Injustice- hidden in plain sight the war on Australian nature’…. followed by some positive contemporary stories of rewarding co-existence with the nature of Australia. My research sought understanding of the extraordinary hold that political/economic narratives maintain over Australians – as demonstrated by the national silence in the face of brutal contemporary management of some still ’common’ native species of mammals and birds.

Wildlife management still a killing culture

Dingos, emus, wombats, kangaroos and wallabies, possums, eagles, various seed-eating cockatoos and other bird species all face lethal ‘management’ by gun or poison from state governments and private landholders. These animals have been demonised as ‘pests’ since settlement and are still removed, charged with ‘competing’ with domestic stock for grass or other vegetation like saltbush, or they are accused of damaging crops and fences or of being unacceptable predators. Ducks and other waterbirds annually face the guns of ‘recreational’ hunters in some states.

More than 60 species of macropod (that is the kangaroo species big and small, thus named because of unique big feet) inhabited Australia at the time of European settlement in 1788. Roughly one quarter of that pre-settlement number is now classified as nationally or regionally extinct or suffering greatly reduced numbers.

See Injustice p123

World’s biggest on-land wildlife slaughter. What do we know?

The fate today of the remaining large kangaroos– Red, Eastern and Western Greys, and Wallaroo or Euro – is to be victims of an industrial-scale wildlife trade largely hidden from the public. The ruthless practice of removing native grazers has morphed into a commercial trade with its own demands.

The Australian kangaroo, the icon that holds up one side of the national coat of arms and is freely used as a tourist attraction and name for sports teams, is also slaughtered en masse for its body parts in a wildlife trade that has grown since the 1950s. Together with non-commercial killing on farms and, strangely, in the national capital, Canberra, kangaroo removal and the commercial trade now constitute the world’s largest on-land killing of a wildlife species.

With a green light from state governments and access to many private landholdings, an army of poorly-paid shooters invades the bush at night, often with children in tow (as publicly-posted evidence shows), to kill and field-butcher kangaroos destined for processors in cities.

Mother and joey

photo: Maria Taylor, image at NSW residence

The kangaroo trade is essentially a bushmeat, petfood and leather trade. Other than the domestic petfood business where whole kangaroo families go into the mincer, “jump steak” and leather (destined for sports shoes) are mostly exported to Europe and the US, not without controversy and [occasional] international wins against the industry.

Despite Australian processors and some academic backers urging citizens to eat kangaroo to maintain this industry and also to “save” the animals from the possibility of starving or being mistreated by graziers, Australians have largely avoided eating their national icon.

Federal and state government support (including overseas lobbying for the trade), frames the commercial kangaroo hunt as a ‘must have’ export industry and a boost for Australian farmers and “jobs”, that everyone would agree with. A narrative of endless abundance accompanies kangaroo “harvesting” as they call it. There have been few if any balancing voices heard in the public square.

Koala hunts set the pattern

Illusions of endless abundance also accompanied the slaughter of koalas for their fur: an export trade from the late 19^th century that escalated in the 1920s. Koala populations have never recovered.

WWII hero and foundation professor of zoology at Monash University Alan ‘Jock’ Marshall exposed the koala industry – particularly the notorious 1927 Queensland open season and the recorded political and citizen statements that surrounded it – in his 1966 anthology book The Great Extermination.

He wrote: “The organised savagery with which kangaroos are being hunted today’, is equalled in our history only by the appalling massacre of koalas in 1927.”

see Injustice p140

Political justifications from that time about impossible rapid breeding and recovery of koalas, as an export commodity vital to the state interest, foreshadow similar narratives justifying the kangaroo slaughter and trade today.

The Great Extermination is a dark chronicle, penned by Marshall and other scientists, recording the mistreatment, hunting and sometime extermination of Australian marsupials and other land-based wildlife starting with settlement, and the even earlier hunt of marine mammals. The extermination was not only direct or due to ignorance but was aided by the zoo of introduced species the colonists brought with them. Other chapters recorded the destruction of forests and woodlands for immigrant commercial agricultural projects.

When the book was published in the 1960s post -war ‘progress’ was pushing more housing, roads and business development across the land, further pressuring ecosystems. Marshall’s unvarnished and quaint subtitle reads: A Guide to Anglo-Australian Cupidity, Wickedness and Waste.

The chapter on birds reports the tragedy that befell that great mimic the bush lyrebird and other species, slaughtered for a few feathers to adorn Victorian hats. We also learn of the extensive killing, including bounties and egg destruction, that faced Australia’s other coat-of-arms upholder, the emu. Emu persecution on behalf of cropping enterprises continued in western Australia into the 1960s.

In 1932 emu destruction even evolved into a proper war complete with Commonwealth-issued machine guns. The emus fought them to a draw on that occasion with guerrilla scatter tactic. National emu populations fluctuate around 700,000 birds that are now seldom seen in the south of the country. The unique flightless bird had in the early days delighted onlookers by fearlessly marched along Sydney streets with the new settlers.

Why does Canberra city kill kangaroos?

This is a good question. The ACT government organises an annual slaughter of kangaroos on nature reserves behind suburbs of the national capital that also calls itself the Bush Capital. Some 1600 innocent lives were dispatched in the winter of 2022 ( more annually since), 2022 the 13^th year of a non-transparent program that also causes considerable trauma to residents who have loved their neighbourhood wildlife.

As a regional journalist, I reported on Canberra’s ‘cull’ for years and still have not pinned down why they do it and ignore condemnation – not least from overseas would-be tourists. A revolving series of justifications are offered to the public ranging from the ‘saving from starvation’ trope to the current so-called ‘conservation cull’ on behalf of other species. The trouble with that explanation is the lack of evidence showing conservation benefits.

https://districtbulletin.com.au/csiro-independent-analysis-no-support-kangaroo-research-assumptions-2/

There is also the little-known fact that nominating the cull for conservation purposes sidesteps advice in the code of practice to avoid killing females many of whom carry joeys. In the ACT, it seems, every kangaroo can be killed.

Guesses as to why this may be so range from pressure coming from the car insurance industry and suburban developers, to bureaucrats hanging on to the roughly million-dollar annual budget for kangaroo management, to the possibility of traditional mindsets inhabiting city politicians (Labor, Greens and Liberals) and their applied ecology advisers favouring removal and minimal native grazers. Kangaroo numbers are estimated and put into a shooting quota in a desktop exercise. There is no baseline study of these sentient family groups or their role in grassland environments. Canberra’s government has followed kangaroo removal with placing cattle and sheep on some of the reserves and badged that as ‘conservation grazing’.

In 2019 the ACT congratulated itself as the first Australian jurisdiction to officially recognise sentience, conscious feelings in animals, formally recognised in 32 countries by then. However, that was soon followed by the ACT reclassifying kangaroos from “protected” to “controlled” species. This not only took away legal avenues of dissent but presumably decided “controlled” mammals do not enjoy sentience?

The ongoing non-commercial killing of kangaroos in Canberra is part of the nation’s world-beating slaughter of this social herd animal and internationally beloved ‘Skippy’. It looks like this:

“With no end in sight, cloaked with science but dog-whistling ‘pest’ the Bush Capital politicians, park bureaucrats and allied scientists have destroyed the structure of local kangaroo mobs. They’ve hired gunmen who are obliged to shoot adults and decapitate or bash small joeys, and bury them all in pits while leaving at-foot joeys to starve or jump in front of cars. They have traumatised residents and gone to great lengths to silence some of those with a more sympathetic and informed view of the kangaroo’s place in the environment.

“In just a decade, the national emblem in the national capital has been ever more bloodstained and diminished, rather than being celebrated as a vital player in biodiversity and as the international icon of Australia that kangaroos are.”

See Injustice p265

Australia’s kangaroo kill now dwarfs remaining whaling, Canada’s slaughter of fur seals or Japan’s of dolphins at Taiji, all of which Australian governments and citizens have loudly condemned. Do Australians know this is going on? Do they wonder about the persecution of still common species in the rollcall of disappearing biodiversity? Do they consider the ethics of lethal management on behalf of profit or tradition, eschewing respect for these unique Australians or ecological understanding? Can we consider turning to peacefully sharing the land to mutual benefit as the First Australians understood?

https://districtbulletin.com.au/feds-applaud-nsw-wildlife-trade-national-symbol-dies-for-petfood-and-shoe-leather/

https://districtbulletin.com.au/goodbye-big-fella/

About the author

Maria Taylor (PhD), is a journalist, author and former documentary filmmaker, now a member of the AWPC working committee dedicated to wildlife advocacy and habitat sustainability. Her recent book: Injustice: hidden in plain sight, the war on Australian nature….where lies truce, healing? expands the themes of this article with the history and facts of Australia’s lethal and unethical management of our native wildlife, a case study of the kangaroo hunt, and points to a co-existence future option. More information at author website www.mariataylor.com.au AWPC members are encouraged to use and promote the book for ecosystem/wildlife and environmental education in Australia.

The post NATIVE ANIMALS UNDER INTENSE FIRE: DO WE CARE? appeared first on Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

LANDMARK CASE: TRACY DODS CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES

AWPC — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:16:36 +0000

Tracy Dods at her property with a friend

By AWPC
March 30, 2026

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LANDMARK CASE: TRACY DODS CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES

‘A former wildlife carer has been cleared of all charges of animal cruelty, five years and five days after WIRES and the RSPCA raided her Blue Mountains property and seized three kangaroos in her care.

‘Tracy Clare Dods, 56, of Kanimbla won her appeal in the Parramatta District Court on Friday, quashing the criminal conviction and sentence that included a ban on owning animals for five years. About 60 supporters from around the state, many of them fellow wildlife carers, travelled to the court for the judgment’, reported Caitlin Fitzsimmons in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) in mid-March.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/ conservation/former-wildlife-carer-s-conviction-for-animal-cruelty-overturned-20260311-p5o9ei.html

The same article reported that Judge Nanette Williams criticised WIRES and RSPCA officers for behaviour that was “at times aggressive” during an unannounced visit in March 2021, and noted that the RSPCA as the prosecuting authority had failed to call crucial witnesses to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

At issue was Dod’s treatment of the painful injuries kangaroo Dolores suffered trying to navigate a fence, an all too often occurrence as kangaroos living amongst us face dangerous fencing including barbed wire, ringlock and dangerously spaced plain wires – all of which can lead to catching and ripping a leg, and other injuries. Also at issue was the timing of diagnoses of the kangaroo’s injuries before and after Dod’s nursing care based on experienced advice.

Judge critical of RSPCA and WIRES case

Judge Williams found for Dods on the basis that there was clear evidence showing she acted in good faith that her care was reasonable and adequate based on the veterinary and carer advice she did receive.

Believing from initial medical diagnosis that there was no fracture, Dolores was treated as a typical fence-hanging injury, focusing on wound care. The judge found this was reasonable.

Dr Rosemary Austen from Possumwood Wildlife hospital and recovery centre outside Canberra was finally allowed to testify as an expert witness about the training that carers receive regarding these types of injuries. She said recovery can take a long time and muscle wastage is common.

Walking free after this five-year battle, Dods said she was in therapy as a result and still gets panic attacks when a strange vehicle drives on her property. “When I see the RSPCA logo, I feel fear and anger,” she told the SMH.

Responsibility for costs will be decided in early June. Dods told the Herald she had spent about $140,000 defending herself, and had raised about $40,000 in crowdfunding from GoFundMe.

Background

Volunteer wildlife care in the spotlight: Inside the Tracy Dods case

When a volunteer wildlife carer faces prosecution, the issue isn’t just about one animal.

This case raises big questions that concern all people who love Australian wildlife. Across each State, taxpayer-funded public institutions and most animal charities do not rescue, rehabilitate and release injured wildlife. The job has fallen to caring citizens, sometimes financially supported by other members of a community via donations.

Tracy Dods has spent years rescuing and rehabilitating injured wildlife, often under extreme conditions. She volunteered on the frontlines during the catastrophic 2020 bushfires. Known for her dedication, honesty, and compassion, Tracy has rescued over 400 kangaroos and wallabies and paid for facilities at her home west of the Blue Mountains to rehabilitate them. Yet she is now at the centre of a criminal prosecution over her care of a kangaroo named Dolores — a case that could redefine how wildlife care is judged in Australia.

Narrow legal question about ‘reasonable’ as dedicated carer convicted of ‘cruelty’

In this landmark case, Dods v R (RSPCA), Tracy’s integrity is not in dispute. The case revolves around a legal question that is narrow but profound in its possible impacts:

Was it reasonable for Tracy to believe that Dolores did not require veterinary treatment from 20 February to 8 March 2021 given the information available, her training, and the circumstances at the time?

The initial court case was brought by the RSPCA (which does not rehabilitate wildlife itself) on referral from WIRES after the two organisations raided Tracy’s property. The prosecution arguing that Dolores required veterinary treatment during this three-week period— care they say only a registered veterinarian can provide — and alleging that Tracy should have known this. The case was framed as a failure to act — not through malice, but through allegedly unreasonable judgment.

The case was under appeal after Tracy was convicted of aggravated cruelty. The appeal judgement appears above.

Dolores

The RSPCA case relied upon post-mortem X-rays said to reveal a fracture – not noted by two veterinarians who early on saw Dolores – plus video footage interpreted as deterioration, as well as veterinary-led testimony that euthanasia was necessary. The case also invokes the principle that wildlife carers are held to a high standard of care.

Much of the prosecution’s evidence rested on the opinion of a veterinarian, brought in by WIRES. His testimony displayed no experience with the rescue and rehabilitation of injured kangaroos, according to court observers who had much experience treating injured macropods: a lengthy task involving medication, vet visits and rest amidst the animals’ stress response when handled

The defence for Tracy has consistently argued that Tracy’s conduct must be assessed based on what she knew at the time, not through the lens of hindsight.

When Tracy first took on Dolores’ care, she was told the kangaroo had been seen by a vet, X-rays were clear and the injuries were consistent with those of a kangaroo caught in a fence referred to as ‘fence-hanger’: open wounds and tendon damage. The primary concerns were infection control and restoring mobility.

In 2019, Tracy completed the fence-hanger course’ presented by private wildlife rescue and treatment facility Possumwood Wildlife Recovery and Research in southern NSW. Based on years of experience rescuing fence-hangers, Possumwood teaches that recovery from such injuries can be slow and highly variable. The training explains that muscle wastage is common, symptoms can worsen before improving, and euthanasia is a last resort rather than a default response. From Tracy’s perspective, Dolores’ progress aligned with that training.

If you would like to learn more about treatment and rehabilitation of kangaroos rescued from fence entanglement (with the poor victims sometimes hanging upside down for a lengthy period) try for this document: Macropod Fence Injuries 2023 Advanced Mac Course PDF via the Possumwood website www.possumwood.com.au; Also see

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=832279666014066

When swelling developed during recovery, Tracy sought further veterinary advice. With treatment, the swelling subsided. Her court defence pointed to this as evidence that Tracy sought veterinary care when she believed it was necessary – all while operating under COVID restrictions (something not mentioned in the court case).

Property raid: Dolores seized and euthanised. Appeal Judge has some issues

Until the RSPCA raid, Tracy was a volunteer with WIRES. She dedicated her time to attending rescues at all times of the day and night, and caring for kangaroos at her home at considerable personal expense because, she said, she feels a deep desire to help wildlife.

A contentious element of the case was a Zoom call organised by WIRES. Tracy believed this was a routine three-monthly welfare check. She says she was given no warning that her care was under scrutiny and no concerns were raised before, during or after the call. Yet a recording of this meeting later became central to the RSPCA court case.

Three people attended the call besides Tracy: a WIRES staff member, a board member and the veterinarian who later testified and was attending the Zoom call at WIRES’ request. No urgent instruction was given to seek immediate veterinary intervention for Dolores. Days later, Tracy was referred to the RSPCA.

On 8 March 2021, the RSPCA – accompanied by WIRES – raided Tracy’s property. Dolores was seized and euthanised.

The appeal judge has since highlighted the systemic pressures that complicate the case and noted a major and troubling inconsistency: fractures missed by registered veterinarians are often deemed understandable, yet the same oversight by a wildlife carer may attract criminal charges.

The judge also questioned WIRES’ role, asking whether the Zoom call framed as supportive may have reinforced Tracy’s belief she was acting appropriately. The absence of key witnesses — including the original vet who took the X-rays, Tracy’s WIRES macropod coordinator and WIRES senior management — further complicated the court’s task and raised questions about where responsibility truly lies.

What does the case mean for carers and community support?

This case has far-reaching implications for wildlife carers and their community supporters. It raises the question of whether legislation designed for domesticated animals and livestock should be used to prosecute carers who take in already-injured wildlife in an attempt to help them survive. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (POCTAA) may be ill-suited to the realities of wildlife rehabilitation. Tracy’s barrister has suggested this case may be less about criminality and more about policy failure – a matter perhaps for state parliament rather than the courts, said the barrister.

The outcome could redefine what ‘reasonable care’ means for wildlife carers nationwide — and set a precedent for legal risks faced by anyone who reaches out to care for injured, sick or orphaned native wildlife.

In the appeal case, Possumwood director and trainer Dr Rosemary Austen was permitted to give evidence that had been excluded in the initial case. While the RSPCA argued only veterinarians possess relevant expertise, the appeal judge cited case law recognising that specialised experience may also be considered.

Dr Austen has told the AWPC that it is typical of the behaviour of a fence-hanger victim in recovery that Dolores was lying down and reluctant to get up when Tracy’s property was raided by a WIRES/RSPCA group. The visitors reportedly insisted the kangaroo get up, and found it troubling when the animal did not.

For more than two decades outside Bungendore NSW, Dr Austen and Professor Steve Garlick have operated Possumwood Wildlife helping the recovery of severely injured and traumatised native animals building a wildlife hospital aided by veterinary support. They also train carers where other support may not exist. Such expertise and knowledge is critical and yet not recognised.

An example of experienced knowledge that carers are taught is that stress can kill wildlife – kangaroos are particularly vulnerable to stress – meaning unnecessary vet visits are often avoided. This is the dilemma carers face every day.

Analysis

Dods v R (RSPCA) has exposed a fault line in Australia’s wildlife protection framework. It raises fundamental questions about responsibility when citizen compassion and common sense fill the gaps of an imperfect policy and institutional system — but where legislative certainty is actually needed to protect carers acting with skill and good intent.

Wildlife carers are struggling to comprehend how Tracy, who provided daily care and attention, could be convicted of aggravated animal cruelty alongside people that act with deliberate cruelty and show no remorse.

Although the prosecution was brought by RSPCA, WIRES played a central role. Tracy was referred to the RSPCA by the organisation she volunteered with and relied upon – a fact that has met with serious disappointment in the wildlife rescue sector. Many now question whether alternative, supportive responses could have prevented this prosecution and the distress it has caused.

This case highlights a dangerous grey zone between treating an animal and letting it die, and the impossible choices wildlife carers can face daily. AWPC has been told the case has instilled fear across the rescue and carer sector and exposed a lack of consistent support and oversight that urgently needs reform.

This case has been characterised as not only a profound institutional failure and misuse of court resources, but a troubling step backwards in the fight for better animal welfare and respect for our unique wildlife.

Background note: WIRES has issues according to volunteers and another court case

WIRES – long Australia’s best-known and trusted wildlife rescue charity –finds itself in in what some volunteers call a crisis. It has been embroiled in NSW Supreme Court proceedings brought by its own members over the adoption of a new constitution that failed to achieve the required 75 percent member support yet was registered with ASIC regardless. According to a volunteer member report to AWPC, more than 900 members who opposed constitution changes were removed, losing their voting rights and role in governance. Critics amongst the volunteers claim the organisation has drifted from rescue and rehabilitation toward corporate growth, control and less transparency. They point out that the mass removal of volunteers clashes with the charity’s reliance on these people for wildlife care on the ground.

Also under question by volunteers is why WIRES is said to retain over $50 million from the 2020 Black Summer bushfire appeal.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/ conservation/the-100-million-windfall-that-quickly-turned-from-a-blessing-into-a-curse-20260201-p5nyor.html

Images supplied

Readers can support Tracy by donating to her legal fees through the GoFundMe below.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/reverse-injustice

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Respect and appreciation out-shoots killing culture

AWPC — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 03:41:39 +0000

Royal Spoonbill with Grey Teal, images courtesy of Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting.

By AWPC
March 10, 2026

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Respect and appreciation out-shoots killing culture

Did you know? Birdwatching, popular with individuals and families, is a huge and growing recreational activity, with economic benefits over $41 billion in the United States alone, according to recent research.

Data on economic and mental health benefits of tourism and birdwatching was gathered by Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting

https://www.regionalvictoriansotds.com/post-1/birds-to-give-wings-to-rural-economies

This work evolved to counter the current Victorian government practice of every year opening wetlands to bird/duck killers: an invasion that hurts more than the avian population.

Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting spokesperson Kerrie Allen has told media audiences in Victoria: “The number of domestic birdwatching tourists presents a huge opportunity to areas around regional Victoria endowed with stunning wetlands and native waterbirds, many unique to our country. Sadly, many such areas, are financially stressed.

Photo: https://www.regionalvictoriansotds.com/the-beauty-gallery

“The fact they are duck shooting areas for a handful of recreational native bird shooters hasn’t helped.

“Studies show most tourists will choose to go somewhere else, (where there is no shooting). The tourism data is more strong evidence that change is in regional Victoria’s best interests. Duck shooting needs to cease, so birdwatching along with our native waterbirds and the rural towns blessed with them, can flourish.”

“More overnight tourists went birdwatching than visited the reef… domestic tourism alone was worth $80 billion to Australia in the year ending December 2019.

Their research showed that the total number of domestic birdwatching tourists was 866,000 in the year ending December 2019. More overnight tourists went birdwatching than visited the reef, 44% more…

Excluding international tourist data, domestic tourism alone was worth $80 billion to Australia year ending December 2019.

The unique Australian native animals in general attract a high level of tourist interest, yet domestically many are persecuted and commercially trafficked. Kangaroos still suffer from a huge commercial trade in skins and meat, supported by all governments. They are also killed, as they have been since colonisation, in removal programs to suit commercial interests.

In the national capital, kangaroos are today shot in high numbers in a controversial, hard-to-fathom annual government ‘cull’. Yet, before the killing started they were documented to be major tourist attractions for Canberra and the ACT, being easily visible in city reserves, co-existing nicely with most human neighbours.

People with shotguns menace wetlands

From March to June every year more than half of Victoria’s public wetlands estate, some 280,000 hectares, is open to individuals carrying shotguns aiming to harm native birds, and effectively locking out the vast majority of Australian citizens. (South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania continue with similar bird hunting seasons).

Victorian community members say there is no government public safety strategy attached. They report that a 2021 survey of 800 regional people found more than half felt unsafe with bird shooters around. Country businesses are impacted. For example properties experience stressed livestock – ‘freaked out’ horses are mentioned. The region experiences loss of tourism income as people leave to avoid walking or camping near the shooters.

The local indigenous community is opposed, saying that from their view of humans and other species, “shooting them you are shooting one of our people”.

Check out the website maintained by Kerrie and her wildlife advocate colleagues. It has great photos and much more information:

https://www.regionalvictoriansotds.com/

Newsflash — Bird watching: delightful new hobby for football stars

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/once-synonymous-with-retirees-in-cargo-shorts-this-hobby-has-a-new-crowd-20260226-p5o5s8.html

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EMUS – Happy Days With Residents of Coastal Village

AWPC — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 02:01:08 +0000

Photo: In the Flinders Ranges photo by Maria Taylor

By AWPC, Maria Taylor
February 20, 2026

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EMUS – HAPPY DAYS WITH RESIDENTS OF COASTAL VILLAGE

Emus ranged widely across Australia and were numerous on the east coast when the European colonists started arriving in the 18^th century. Like other Australian native grazing animals they continue to play a vital role in managing their habitats/ecosystems leading to the landscape we inherited (more on that later in this story). The large flightless birds were recorded as joining colonists on parade in Sydney in a friendly fashion in the early days before the hunting started. But soon a removal policy to suit European -style agriculture targeted emus as it did other Australian natives.

A historical climax of this policy came with an infamous but also bemusing ‘emu war’ in WA that even drew in the Australian military. Emus and their eggs have continued to be the target of agricultural land managers, particularly in the west and Australian governments have supported the removal of indigenous species everywhere (until they become formally ‘endangered’ and then bureaucracies take a bow for doing something positive).

A recent report in the Sydney media documented the prevalence of lethal removal of wildlife by urban developers amongst their first activities at a site. Mammals are poisoned and birds like cockatoos and hawks become the victims of secondary poisoning eating the carcasses. Many bird species and their nests are also the victims of chainsaw destruction.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/ conservation/the-sydney-suburbs-where-developers-are-killing-the-most-wildlife-20260209-p5o0m9.html

Coexistence in a coastal village

Against that background, a good news story from the NSW South Coast was great to see as we strive for coexistence with our remaining wildlife. The following heart-warming and unexpected neighbourhood story from Potato Point comes with thanks to an ABC report by James Tugwell with some of his reported quotes and supplied images repeated below.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-17/potato-point-emu-population-east-coast-beach/105185358

“A businessman shipped in a population of about a dozen emus from Western Australia 30 years ago to live on his private island — Horse Island — at the mouth of the Tuross River.

“What he didn’t realise was that emus are proficient swimmers, and soon his imported pets had made a break for the mainland — 20 to 100 metres away, depending on the tide”.

Photo: supplied: Eurobodalla Shire Council

Tugwell quotes local wildlife volunteer Rachel McInnes who didn’t know Potato Point, 8 kilometres east of Bodalla, had emus when she moved to the area 18 years ago. “It’s a joy to go out your back or front door and see a couple of emus walking down the street,” she says.

“It’s hilarious when you look down on the beach and think: ‘What’s that? Is that a person? No, it’s an emu.’. She said seeing the wildlife makes living in a beautiful place even more special.

Photo: with local surf lifesaver, supplied: Eurobodalla Shire Council

Ms McInnes said humans and emus live together in harmony at Potato Point. “They are protected here. We give them space and they are happy to coexist.” But for visitors and tourists, she warns off selfie shots. “Don’t ever think you’re going to get a selfie with a wild emu. They are absolutely a wild animal.”

The population struggled at first. But Tugwell reports that with the National Parks and Wildlife Service placing fox baits throughout the national park, Potato Point and the surrounding Eurobodalla National Park have become an emu haven.

“Every year we see chicks, and lots of them,” Ms McInnes said. t’s a topic of conversation when the new chicks are hatched: ‘How many have you seen? This year, one local spotted a male emu with 21 chicks.”

Emu ecological role

From public sources we learn that emus play a crucial role in maintaining the health and biodiversity of Australian ecosystems. Their grazing helps control vegetation growth as they disturb the soil, promoting seed germination and increasing plant diversity. Their droppings provide essential nutrients for plant growth. Emus are also seed dispersers, aiding in the regeneration of native vegetation. They have a unique digestive system that utilizes grit and stones to grind up their food, and they follow migratory locust swarms, feasting on the insects. Emus are omnivorous, eating seeds, flowers, fruits, and tender roots. In summer, they eat insects, especially caterpillars, beetles, and grasshoppers, and also small vertebrates.

The ABC story includes an interview with Western Sydney University ecological statistician Julia Ryeland who said emus are catalysts for bush regeneration by transporting seeds that get stuck in their claws or that pass through their digestive system. She said they are quite a key seed disperser among different landscapes.

“They are one of the few species that are completely generous. They more or less eat anything, and they can transport really large amounts of seed really quite far distances…”

Author and journalist and AWPC editor Maria Taylor has documented the ongoing story of native animal removal in Australia in her book ‘Injustice… ‘

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DANCE TO THE MUSIC, CELEBRATE LIFE!

AWPC — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 05:39:59 +0000

A cockatoo can perform many dance moves. (Image supplied to ABC: Irena Schulz)

December 15, 2025

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DANCE TO THE MUSIC, CELEBRATE LIFE!

Here’s a sweet festive season story: a reminder that it’s not only humans who respond to rhythm and music – as some of us have learned observing our animal companions chilling with music, from classical to jazz, rock to country.

According to this ABC story (accompanied by a delightful video of a white cockatoo’s dance moves supplied courtesy of Cell Press), a Charles Sturt University study has documented dance moves unique to cockatoo species. Researchers hope music can be used to improve the wellbeing of birds in captivity. A praiseworthy goal. We may agree that our wild birds should not be in captivity in the first place, not least the gregarious and active parrots and cockatoos but since they are, consider zoos, stimulating engagement with music should help.

Headbanging and sidestepping to music

The story by regional ABC reporter Coco Veldkamp, draws on a study published in the journal PLOS One that found cockatoos can headbang, body roll and sidestep intentionally to music. In the study, researchers found some cockatoos had their own signature moves, unique to each individual, while other species appeared to favour different styles.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-07/cockatoos-have-unique-dance-moves-csu-study-finds/105600994

The ABC story reports: “Spontaneous dancing in time to music had only been officially recorded in humans until Snowball, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, went viral for dancing to the Backstreet Boys more than a decade ago. This link offers another cockatoo dancing sequence featuring Snowball the lab cockatoo.

“In 2019, in a Current Biology study, professor of psychology at Tufts University, Aniruddh Patel, and his colleagues explored Snowball’s ability to dance spontaneously, challenging the long-held belief that sophisticated movement to music was uniquely human.

“The study showed that Snowball developed 16 distinct moves without any formal training to dance.…By studying dancing to music in numerous parrots across several species, the new study found 17 new moves.”

The Australian Charles Sturt researchers worked with Major Mitchells cockatoos as well as Sulphur-Crested cockatoos and Galahs at Wagga Wagga zoo. They reported: “One particularly enthusiastic Major Mitchell cockatoo made a total of 257 moves in sequence while listening to a 20-minute loop of The Nights.”

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HOPE AND ACT FOR NATURE

AWPC — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 03:22:54 +0000

By Maria Taylor AWPC committee
November 19, 2025

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HOPE AND ACT FOR NATURE

Our AWPC mission is to encourage each of us to co-exist positively with the nature around us, find solutions to local nature destruction and actively work for wildlife people, our fellow species, and their habitats. Linked are a couple of stories on the threat to our mutual habitat, this small green planet, with a call for us as citizens to be proactive – demand effective remedies for restoration of atmospheric balance and not be sidetracked and hobbled by the weak or dismissive and distracting response we now see from elected political leaders. Do they have a death wish? The stakes are about the whole of biodiversity as much as human survival in the comfy ‘civilizations’ we enjoy.

The call for individual action for the planet and our fellow species is nicely put by the eminent zoologist Jane Goodall in a foreword to a recent book profiling community action for nature around the world, Echos from Eden. (Jane Goodall, main image. Source: ABC, supplied by The Jane Goodall Institute).

She writes: “One of the questions I am asked most often is: Do you honestly believe there is hope for our world? And I answer truthfully that we do have a window of time during which we can start healing the harm we have inflicted on the planet – but the window is closing…. We must get together and take action now.

“My definition of hope is different from simple optimism – just passively hoping that something will happen. No, for me hope is generated through action… the cumulative effect of thousands of ethical actions will improve our world for future generations.”

To consider: links to climate change/nature stories courtesy of The Guardian

Net zero is an insidious loophole that distracts from the scientific imperative to eliminate fossil fuels writes Joëlle Gergis

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree /2025/nov/07/net-zero-distracts-from-scientific-imperative-to-eliminate-fossil-fuels-cop30?CMP=share_btn_url

What are we offered as daily media fare on climate change? The spectacular nonsense of the Coalition’s internal brawl over the 2050 net zero emissions target

https://www.theguardian.com /environment/commentisfree/2025/nov/11/ coalition-brawl-australia-2050-net-zero-emissions-target?CMP=share_btn_url

Biodiversity is in catastrophic decline. Here are three ways to ensure Australia’s conservation law actually works | Atticus Fleming and Andrew Macintosh

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree /2025/oct/28/australia-conservation-law-biodiversity-decline?CMP=share_btn_url

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SAVES LIVES, TRAUMA, CAR INSURANCE CLAIMS

AWPC — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 03:11:30 +0000

AWPC with Save Canberra’s Kangaroos
October 13, 2025

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Virtual fencing: SAVES LIVES, TRAUMA, CAR INSURANCE CLAIMS

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council applauds the success stories emerging from some areas in Victoria, Tasmania, and on the South Coast of NSW involving virtual fencing placed to stem wildlife kills on our roads.

Virtual fencing is a relatively inexpensive technology designed to alert animals to oncoming traffic. It involves the installation of small roadside devices on posts spaced approximately 25 metres apart. The devices emit high-frequency sounds and flashing lights when they detect the headlights of approaching vehicles at night or in low-light conditions.

Supplied Images

These signals are designed to deter animals, particularly kangaroos, from crossing the road when a vehicle is approaching. The technology does not harm wildlife or require fencing that restricts animal movement across the landscape.

90% fewer kangaroo strikes at known road hotspot

Virtual fencing has proven effective in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions. On the NSW South Coast, 1.1kms (46 posts) of virtual fencing were installed on 8 October 2022. Prior to that installation and during the peak holiday season, wildlife rescue volunteers and council staff were attending up to five wildlife strikes per week. After the virtual fencing was installed, only five kangaroos were struck in eight months. That is a 90% reduction in kangaroo fatalities along a known hotspot.

On Victoria’s Surf Coast, a virtual fencing trial has halved the number of vehicle collisions with macropods (kangaroo species) at a known hotspot.

Trial proposed for Canberra

Canberra’s wildlife advocates took note, and are proposing a virtual fencing trial at a known kangaroo fatality hotspot. In September, ACT Greens Deputy Leader, Jo Clay, tabled a community petition signed by 1350 people. It calls for a trial of virtual fencing along Erindale Drive to reduce collisions with wildlife, kangaroos and wombats. If effective, the trail on Erindale Drive between Farrer Ridge and Wanniassa Hills could be expanded to other known hot spots.

Accidentally hitting wildlife with a car is incredibly distressing – for the animal, the driver, people who witness it…

“It is not easy for anyone to see an animal in pain and, in most cases, die,” Ms Clay said.

Canberra has prided itself as the bush capital, surrounded by nature. However there has long existed a conflicting picture of the capital and its relationship with nature. The positive virtual fencing initiative pushes back at the brutal killing of kangaroo families on city nature reserves, an ACT government policy for the past decade. Moving to virtual fencing also highlights likely reasons, involving motorist complaints, driving that lethal government policy.

Lead petitioner Aisha Bottrill (image at start of story) of Save Canberra’s Kangaroos has attended many incidents on Erindale Drive. She says she learned from wildlife carers, the ones on the frontline caring for animals hit by vehicles. They have reported seeing a decrease in call outs in places where there is virtual fencing. “That’s why wildlife carers have been calling for virtual fencing to be rolled out in more areas. They know it works and can see firsthand the impact it has on reducing collisions.”

Insurance firms in pivotal place

Save Canberra’s Kangaroos (SCK) is seeking sponsorship from insurance companies to fund the trial. Success would confirm the potential for savings on personal injury payouts, and reduce the number and cost of motor vehicle claims. SCK points out that in the longer term this should also reduce motor vehicle premiums and provide a greater return to shareholders, while protecting our precious wildlife from car strikes. AWPC has supported the outreach to insurance companies as partners.

Winter, spring months increase collision potential

AAMI and NRMA insurance claims data show that on average collisions with wildlife are more common during the winter months and into spring (Sept/October). Animals are on the move for food or involve males leaving the home range in spring. Short winter days involve more driving time in lower light conditions plus poorer weather conditions increase the chances of hitting an animal, particularly early morning and during dusk (commuting hours). Claims data from July 2024 – June 2025 showed AAMI processed over 23,840 wildlife-related claims, with regional roads being particularly dangerous. Canberra had the most animal collisions in an Australian city, according to 2020 AAMI claims data.

An ACT Parks and Conservation chart pertaining to Eastern Grey Kangaroos collisions, supports insurance company data that winter and spring are the worst months.

Look at your area

Consider advocating for virtual fencing in your council area. We’ll endeavour to keep you posted on this initiative or follow SCK Facebook and Instagram.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-23/eurobodalla-virtual-fence-trial-reducing-roadkill-incidents/102880624

https://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/environment/native-and-threatened-species/virtual-fencing

https://ger.org.au/first-trial-of-virtual-fencing-to-reduce-wildlife-roadkill-on-nsw-south-coast-deemed-a-major-success/

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