A Night in the Australian Bush

Eleonora Gullone, PhD, FAPS
School of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychological Medicine
Monash University

Presented at the book launch for: 

Wilson, M., & Croft, D (eds.) (2005). Kangaroos: Myths and Realities. Australian

Wildlife Protection Council: Melbourne.

In the next 15 minutes or so, I would like to take you on a journey through a night in the Australian bush in 2005. The story that I will tell is based completely on fact. It is not, in any way, fictional.

It is a calm, warm night and a mob of Australian kangaroos is grazing peacefully on one of the few remaining remnants of natural Australian bushland. This area has not been severely drought affected and so the kangaroos are able to obtain some sustenance here.

The core of the mob is mothers and their young. Many of these mothers are female relatives. Roving males visit the female groupings and their mating rights are dependent on reaching their position in a male hierarchy.  This is a group order that has evolved over tens of thousands of years ensuring that the strongest and the genetically fittest kangaroos are those most likely to breed.  This ensures that the gene line stays strong.  The individual who takes precedence over all other males is the alpha male. Not only is he a handsome animal, he is the physically strongest, a fact proven through the many battles he has won with other adult males to earn his mating rights. 

Over millennia, kangaroos have developed a perfect fit with the harsh Australian environment.  They don't need as much water or energy (food) as cattle and sheep to survive. Their soft feet tread lightly on their native land unlike the damage caused by hoofed animals. 

If the land here was severely drought affected, the reproduction of the females would be held at bay.  That is, the evolution of kangaroos is so finely tuned to their environment that during periods of prolonged drought, female kangaroos' reproduction is naturally suspended.  During hard drought, the female kangaroo simply does not come into oestrus (heat). 

But because the particular area that we are now visiting has not been severely drought affected, the adult females have successfully reproduced and are accompanied by their young.  Some have a joey in the pouch as well as a joey at foot. 

The mothers and their young share an extraordinary bond that will continue well into the young's juvenile years when they are no longer dependent on their mother for food.  Even in adulthood, females set up home ranges around that of their mother. 

The pouch young in later stages already look well developed but are still very dependent on their mother for survival. And the young-at-foot who have left the pouch permanently also remain heavily dependent on their mother for survival until they are weaned when they are aged over 4-6 months.

…..Suddenly, the animals appear agitated, alert and some begin to scatter.  Spotlights appear and the shooters' vehicles come into view….then BANG off goes a gun shot.  “Got him” says one of the shooters.  Yes, the Alpha male, the most attractive target for the shooters of the Kangaroo Industry, has gone down.  Because he is the biggest, he will fetch them a good fee.  “Oh there's another big one” says a shooter....and BANG, another shot.  “Got him”  “Nah mate, shot him in the mouth….shoot him again…ah too late ….he's gone.” 

The shooters target the head because the Code of Practice says that kangaroos must be “head shot”.  Kangaroos that have not been head shot are not legally acceptable for processing into meat or leather. But head shooting is difficult for even the most trained and precise shooter since shooting occurs from a moving vehicle and the target is a fast moving animal…and it is pitch black night apart from a spotlight that needs to keep the target in its field….and so incidents such as the one just described occur often. This particular adult male has been shot in the mouth but has escaped into the darkness of the Australian bushland in terror and excruciating pain. He will die a slow and agonizing death.

BANG, another shot. This time the target is a large adult female.  “Yep, she's down.”  Her young- at-foot has hopped off into the night.  He will call for his mother in vein. She can no longer hear him. He will now fall victim to a slow death from starvation, dehydration or predation.

Then, a shooter takes aim and blows a hole in the neck of another adult female.  She falls….helpless to save her joey who retreats into the presumed safety of his mother's pouch.  But there is no escape. The shooter pulls the joey out of his dying mother's body, tosses the joey to the ground and stamps on his head….The shot mother does not die instantly.  She struggles as the hunter slits her leg open, thrusts a hook through it and hangs her upside down on a truck. She is knifed, gutted, her head, tail, and legs tossed aside.

The kangaroo shooter's son looks on.  One day he too may join his dad in the hunt.  In the meantime, he is learning the lessons of a kangaroo hunter. Show no mercy.  Shoot the adults, bash their healthy, dependent young to death or chop their head off, and let the injured adults run into the night and into their slow, painful deaths.

Now, imagine this scenario occurring for countless numbers of kangaroo mobs, 365 times per year for 20 years - since 1985 when the National Code of Practice was introduced (but in reality, the period is much longer since the “pest” myth paved the way for commercial killing in the 1970's).  Very large numbers of kangaroos are shot averaging 3 million per year over the last decade.  An estimated 1% of adult kangaroos shot escape with their injury and fall to a slow and painful death.  In 2000, for example, over 100,000 kangaroos were not fatally head shot.

…And, last night as you slept over a thousand (young at foot) joeys were abandoned to die a cruel death, and the same number again of pouch joeys were brutally killed by shooters.

Kill quotas have fluctuated from 885,000 in 1975, up to 3 million in 1983, down again in 1985 to nearly 2 million (when the population dived), up again to nearly 6 million in 1999, up higher still in 2002 to 6.9 million and currently at 3.9 million in 2005.  

In Queensland in 2003, an estimated 467,750 female Grey and Red Kangaroos were killed. Because of the larger size favoured by shooters, all of these females are likely to have been sexually mature and to have a joey in their pouch.  Industry advisor, Tony Pople, claims that about a third will have dependent young-at-foot. This represents anywhere between half a million (if only one young is counted per female) and three quarters of million (if two young are counted: a joey at foot and one in the pouch) joeys being killed or left to die in one typical year and one state of Australia alone. 

There is no provision in the code for out-of-pouch joeys.  It is also important to know that adherence to the Code is impossible to monitor as highlighted by the RSPCA in their 2002 report.

So it is the case that the Kangaroo Industry, subsidized by the Australian government, represents the largest wildlife massacre that the world has ever seen.  Not surprisingly, this is happening in a country that already has the worst record of any country in the world regarding species extinction.  Eighteen species of mammals are already gone and another 45 are on the threatened list.  Six species of kangaroos are gone in Australasia, and another four on the mainland. An additional 17 species are classified as endangered or vulnerable. This appalling record has been clocked up in just 200 years. 

Also of serious concern is the increasing scientific evidence demonstrating that engaging in behaviours that are harmful to sentient creatures (e.g., shooting) is indicative of decreased empathy levels or results in desensitization to another's suffering. Research has shown that low empathy toward non-human animals is predictive of low empathy towards humans. Humans who are cruel to animals are more likely to be abusive towards humans as well. This is relationship referred to at “The link” (between human violence and animal cruelty). So are we, as a society that is legally endorsing hunting for sport and the kangaroo industry, unintentionally promoting “criminal” behaviours through the continued legal status of such activities?

So, although kangaroo hunting is legal, it represents cruelty on a massive and sustained scale. It requires an inability on the part of those directly involved in the kangaroo industry, to empathise with the grand scale suffering that they are causing.  Financial gain strongly motivates the existence of an industry for which significant social and welfare issues have not been addressed.

The scientific and ethical integrity of those providing supporting arguments for the continuation of the kangaroo industry needs to be closely and carefully scrutinised by independent researchers. 

So why is this massacre allowed to continue? 

It is clear that we, the Australian public, have been successfully “duped” by the Industry.  And so, without any opposition, the Kangaroo Industry charges ahead.  Their mantra, that kangaroos are pests, has quietly changed to a new mantra (most probably because numbers are seriously down and the “pest” argument just can't fly anymore).  Now we hear that “Eating kangaroo meat is good for us and the environment”. But can anyone really believe that the sheep, cow, and pig industries will ever be replaced with the kangaroo industry?  Very unlikely and so, do we really need more red meat? Certainly not for local consumption as Australia is the world's largest beef exporter!

When more kangaroo species begin to fall to extinction, the faces behind the industry, having made their money, will be laughing all the way to the bank.  There is no mercy and no compassion being shown here.  There is no respect for the powerful and exquisite forces of nature that have resulted in an amazing symbiosis between flora, fauna, and a harsh land. No, there is no compassion, only an infinite appetite for profit.

So what can we do?  

• Don't buy kangaroo meat sold for pet food or for human consumption.
• Don't order kangaroo meat dishes from restaurants.
• Don't buy kangaroo leather products. Here Adidas is the biggest culprit.
• Write letters to state and federal environment ministers telling them how appalled you are at the way our country is treating our National Emblem.
  

Want to know more?

Read the excellent book that is being launched today which will fill you in on the dark, hard facts and will arm you with the information and ability to make a difference in your own way!