Thoraiya DyerKangaroo Cull Is Kindness
May 20th 2008 22:19
Nobody could accuse me of not being an animal-lover.
I’m famous in my family for declaring to my horrified grandparents that a single Siberian tiger, representing 0.2% of the species, is equivalent in value to 12 million humans.
But when I see so-called animal lovers on television saying that a cull of 400 kangaroos to prevent them from irreversibly destroying grasslands, killing endangered species and then starving to death in the end is “the cruellest thing I’ve ever seen”, I want to give them a good slap and tell them to wake up.
Do they really think that this:
Is worse than this:
???
Nature is crueller than anything that humans can come up with. OK, so they want to move the kangaroos elsewhere, somewhere they won’t starve. They’ve even asked Paul McCartney to pitch in ( Really Long Link ).
To me, insisting on relocating these animals at a cost of $3.5 million ( Really Long Link ) to the Australian Defence Force is just insane.
$3.5 million dollars could buy a vast stretch of fenced, predator-free forest in which to release rehabilitated numbats or bilbies.
$3.5 million dollars donated to the University of Tasmania’s School of Zoology could mean a breakthrough when it comes to the fatal Devil Facial Tumour epidemic that is set to send the Tasmanian Devil into oblivion beside its cousin the Tasmanian Tiger.
(Anyone heading to Tasmania who would like to do volunteer work with Devils, have a look here: Really Long Link - I would love to do this).
$3.5 million dollars could go a long way towards establishing a second, suitable habitat for the Northern Hairy-Nosed wombat ( Really Long Link ), of which there are only 113 individuals left IN THE WHOLE WORLD, and a single bushfire could put an end to them forever.
Kangaroos are not endangered animals.
CBC offers the friendly reminder ( Really Long Link ) that:
“Australia's kangaroo population fluctuates depending on weather conditions, but is estimated at up to 50 million - more than double the country's human population.”
I can understand the heartbreak in having to watch any animal die. Especially for wildlife carers who devote their time to raising orphaned joeys. It must seem painfully futile to spend sleepless weeks and months, waking up every 2-3 hours to feed an orphan until big enough to be released – and then see 400 kangaroos felled at one swoop.
But the RSPCA is monitoring the cull, and says it is humane. Tranquillisation followed by lethal injection is infinitely preferable to letting them starve. Nobody objects when farmers shoot their starving sheep in times of drought. Culling is a kindness, and lethal injections don’t come cheap. Letting the kangaroos starve to death – or even shooting them - would save the ADF some serious dollars.
As with any animal in a natural ecosystem, when the population grows higher than can be supported, starvation is nature’s way of preserving the balance. Kangaroos are so well adapted to the Australian environment that they have the means to spontaneously abort foetuses when it hasn’t rained for a while and grass is scarce. And we didn’t always have this much grass. Kangaroos have never had it so good.
The Australian Government’s DFAT ( Really Long Link ) advises that:
“The Australian rangeland environment is fragile and easily degraded. Kangaroo populations have increased dramatically since European settlement in these areas due to the introduction of European farming methods, with additional water for domestic stock.”
But is it wildlife carers that are objecting to the cull? Or is it the same old non-Australian ignoramuses with an international agenda who hit the media time and time again protesting the harvesting of kangaroos for meat and leather products?
Animal Liberation in the ACT ( http://www.al-act.org/ ) does not support the cull. Its website offers a critique of the Defence Force’s report on the enclosed grasslands at Belconnen. Where the report claims that kangaroo populations there have increased due to the exclusion of predators (dingos), Animal Lib argues that,
“… this assumption does not take into account the evidence that non-predated kangaroo populations tend to stabilize (subject to food availability)…”
So, even Animal Lib can admit that when there are too many kangaroos and not enough food, some of them are going to die.
Looks like we are left with the non-Australian ignoramuses!
With a website called savethekangaroo.com (THERE ARE 50 MILLION OF THEM, LOSERS), UK-based group Viva (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) not only advocates a total boycott of all kangaroo products, but makes the outrageous claim that:
“the industry can - and must - be stopped if the future survival of kangaroos is to be ensured.”
I’m not going to go into kangaroo “harvesting” here, although my personal opinion is this: Kangaroo shooting, when done by trained, skilled people, is not cruel, and stamping out trade in commercial products is not going to stop bogans in utes from killing kangaroos for fun.
My point is that the media circus over the cull in Canberra is not really about the cull at all. It’s just another opportunity for these loons to make loud noises in the war they are waging against all animal deaths.
Well, I’ve got news for Viva. You can turn the whole world into vegetarians, but this is still going to happen:
And this is still going to happen:
And this is still going to happen:
So please, don’t call painless lethal injections "the cruellest thing I've ever seen." They are peaceful blessings in comparison with having your haunches shredded by a lioness while you are still alive, suffocating after being swallowed head first by a python or slammed around by a killer whale for an hour before being torn apart. And they are much kinder than starvation.
I’m famous in my family for declaring to my horrified grandparents that a single Siberian tiger, representing 0.2% of the species, is equivalent in value to 12 million humans.
But when I see so-called animal lovers on television saying that a cull of 400 kangaroos to prevent them from irreversibly destroying grasslands, killing endangered species and then starving to death in the end is “the cruellest thing I’ve ever seen”, I want to give them a good slap and tell them to wake up.
Do they really think that this:
Is worse than this:
???
Nature is crueller than anything that humans can come up with. OK, so they want to move the kangaroos elsewhere, somewhere they won’t starve. They’ve even asked Paul McCartney to pitch in ( Really Long Link ).
To me, insisting on relocating these animals at a cost of $3.5 million ( Really Long Link ) to the Australian Defence Force is just insane.
$3.5 million dollars could buy a vast stretch of fenced, predator-free forest in which to release rehabilitated numbats or bilbies.
$3.5 million dollars donated to the University of Tasmania’s School of Zoology could mean a breakthrough when it comes to the fatal Devil Facial Tumour epidemic that is set to send the Tasmanian Devil into oblivion beside its cousin the Tasmanian Tiger.
(Anyone heading to Tasmania who would like to do volunteer work with Devils, have a look here: Really Long Link - I would love to do this).
$3.5 million dollars could go a long way towards establishing a second, suitable habitat for the Northern Hairy-Nosed wombat ( Really Long Link ), of which there are only 113 individuals left IN THE WHOLE WORLD, and a single bushfire could put an end to them forever.
Kangaroos are not endangered animals.
CBC offers the friendly reminder ( Really Long Link ) that:
“Australia's kangaroo population fluctuates depending on weather conditions, but is estimated at up to 50 million - more than double the country's human population.”
I can understand the heartbreak in having to watch any animal die. Especially for wildlife carers who devote their time to raising orphaned joeys. It must seem painfully futile to spend sleepless weeks and months, waking up every 2-3 hours to feed an orphan until big enough to be released – and then see 400 kangaroos felled at one swoop.
But the RSPCA is monitoring the cull, and says it is humane. Tranquillisation followed by lethal injection is infinitely preferable to letting them starve. Nobody objects when farmers shoot their starving sheep in times of drought. Culling is a kindness, and lethal injections don’t come cheap. Letting the kangaroos starve to death – or even shooting them - would save the ADF some serious dollars.
As with any animal in a natural ecosystem, when the population grows higher than can be supported, starvation is nature’s way of preserving the balance. Kangaroos are so well adapted to the Australian environment that they have the means to spontaneously abort foetuses when it hasn’t rained for a while and grass is scarce. And we didn’t always have this much grass. Kangaroos have never had it so good.
The Australian Government’s DFAT ( Really Long Link ) advises that:
“The Australian rangeland environment is fragile and easily degraded. Kangaroo populations have increased dramatically since European settlement in these areas due to the introduction of European farming methods, with additional water for domestic stock.”
But is it wildlife carers that are objecting to the cull? Or is it the same old non-Australian ignoramuses with an international agenda who hit the media time and time again protesting the harvesting of kangaroos for meat and leather products?
Animal Liberation in the ACT ( http://www.al-act.org/ ) does not support the cull. Its website offers a critique of the Defence Force’s report on the enclosed grasslands at Belconnen. Where the report claims that kangaroo populations there have increased due to the exclusion of predators (dingos), Animal Lib argues that,
“… this assumption does not take into account the evidence that non-predated kangaroo populations tend to stabilize (subject to food availability)…”
So, even Animal Lib can admit that when there are too many kangaroos and not enough food, some of them are going to die.
Looks like we are left with the non-Australian ignoramuses!
With a website called savethekangaroo.com (THERE ARE 50 MILLION OF THEM, LOSERS), UK-based group Viva (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) not only advocates a total boycott of all kangaroo products, but makes the outrageous claim that:
“the industry can - and must - be stopped if the future survival of kangaroos is to be ensured.”
I’m not going to go into kangaroo “harvesting” here, although my personal opinion is this: Kangaroo shooting, when done by trained, skilled people, is not cruel, and stamping out trade in commercial products is not going to stop bogans in utes from killing kangaroos for fun.
My point is that the media circus over the cull in Canberra is not really about the cull at all. It’s just another opportunity for these loons to make loud noises in the war they are waging against all animal deaths.
Well, I’ve got news for Viva. You can turn the whole world into vegetarians, but this is still going to happen:
And this is still going to happen:
And this is still going to happen:
So please, don’t call painless lethal injections "the cruellest thing I've ever seen." They are peaceful blessings in comparison with having your haunches shredded by a lioness while you are still alive, suffocating after being swallowed head first by a python or slammed around by a killer whale for an hour before being torn apart. And they are much kinder than starvation.
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Comment by Damo
No one likes a cull but few argue over whether a hotdog has meat in it.
I can understand where the department of defence is coming from and they are actually trying to fix a problem that was in part created by them. Open grass land helps roos at the expense of other animals that are more threatened.
I could say a lot about Animal Lib but I will refrain for now except to say that they are not my kind of heroes.
Finally have you ever had a Kangaroo steak? They are so damn tasty and lean. I love them.
Comment by Thoraiya Dyer
Demented World
Yes, I will admit to being partial to kangaroo steak. Yum
Comment by Geoff Egan
Noise Fanatic
I grew up on a farm, where shooting kangaroos was occasionally nessecary to protect crops. Nobody liked doing this. Kangaroos are a well liked animal even in the farming comunitee where it is most common.
To say that kangaroos are threatened by culling 400 is rediculous. To compare it to whaling, as has been done by the Japanese, is beyond comprehension. I'm wondering where much of the land the proposed relocation is also. In case people forgot Australia is still in the midst of a drought.
Also Kangaroo steaks are excellent!
Comment by Thoraiya Dyer
Demented World
I can't understand how culling kangaroos can be compared to whaling, either, but then, I can't understand why the Japanese can't see that hunting endangered animals = extinct animals = no more hunting.
Ah, well
Comment by KKurtz
The thing that particularly bugs me is the way we are going about the cull. They are herding the roos into pens, tranquilising them and then giving them a lethal injection. I think that this is a ridiculous waste of time and money and is likely to cause unnecessary stress to the animals. Shooting (by a professional) would actually be much more humane - one hit and thats it, and no confinement. As someone who works with animals I know that it is accepted that if an animal has to undergo a procedure or be culled, other animals should have minimal exposure to this. They way they going about it they will have a hundred roos hopping mad in a pen while someone injects them one at a time. I think that they are doing the cull this way to please the media/animal activists but in doing so are probably actually increasing the impact on animal welfare.