More than 1000 kangaroos removed from Canberra parks as cull concludes

Skeptic9999. There certainly have been some co-incidental(?) land developments post kangaroo ”culls” in some locations. You can’t really blame people for thinking the killing of kangaroos in Canberra nature reserves is related to urban and infrastructure development. If the official reasons for killing wildlife seem so spurious, then many people will try and make some sense of it. Making sense of the mass slaughter of wildlife is something a lot of people find very difficult. I’m sure you could understand that. It doesn’t matter if animals are ”abundant” or in precarious numbers, the wilful killing of kangaroos (in this instance) is reprehensible to people who despair about our governments’ cavalier attitudes to wildlife.
As for science having the final say: it is undeniable that, seen over many decades, land “management” in Australia, including supposed scientifically supported land management, has a disastrous history. This science-based land management has always been advocated by authoritative people who have claimed to know what is correct, only to be shown, subsequently, to have been grievously wrong. The outcomes have been shocklingly degraded soils and watercourses and the loss of native flora and fauna. In life and death cases for native animals in particular, it’s not just about science, it’s also about morality and ethics.

Hi Riot Act – can you please delete my previous comment as I accidentally pressed submit before I was finished. It has a number of spelling errors. The correct comment is –

Skeptic 9999 – that is not what I said.  After killing kangaroos new developments are rammed up against the nature reserves.  There is absolutely no guarantee that the land will remain as reserves.   True to form – a change in legislation will do it.  I have provided a link to the evidence of all the wrongdoing by this cruel and corrupt ACT Government – No transparency, no accountability, no oversight, “robokill” – garbage in garbage out, .  Make no mistake all the Ministers and public servants, even the retired ones, responsible for the ACT kangaroo “cull”, will be held to account for the extinction of EGKs from Canberra.

FACT CHECK-We can’t kill our way back to biodiversity. Instead compassionate conservation is gaining support within conservation science. Compassionate conservation promotes the treatment of all wildlife be done with respect, justice, and compassion. One of the guiding principles is peaceful coexistence. Whether species are common or rare, whether native or not, all wildlife have intrinsic value. It is well known that human activities harm wildlife. Compassionate conservation aims to find solutions that minimise that harm.

So instead of continuing to live in our colonial past of over-exploiting wildlife, where the language for killing is coded as “culling”, “population control”, “hunting”, “environmental damage”, the ACT Government needs to move to protecting our wildlife and restoring lost wildlife habitat for future generations.

Furthermore, how can anyone believe anything the ACT Government says when it is a matter of public record that at the ACAT 2013 hearing, Don Fletcher, one of the architects of the kangaroo killing program, made the astonishing admission that TAMS’ assertions that the cull will protect threatened species are just “PR”. At the same hearing, he also admitted his only basis for asserting that kangaroos have a negative impact on reserve ecosystems is that kangaroos eat grass. The CSIRO Plant Industries Report in 2014 confirms the expert opinion expressed at those hearings:  ie-the Government’s use of grass mass as the indicator for diversity is patently absurd.  It is the number and variety of plants and animals, not mass of vegetation that gives all species the best chance to live and thrive.

In addition, Don Fletcher admitted that the purpose of the cull was not to stop damage being done by the kangaroos but to prevent damage that might possibly done in the future if all aspects of his assumptions and modelling were correct (WHICH HE ADMITTED THEY WERE NOT).

FACT CHECK: None of the culled areas has been developed Karl Herzog. It is one of the lies made up by right-to-lifers, and has been around since Defence started culling in the Belconnen Naval Transmission Station in 2007. That area inside the security fence has been claimed many times to have been developed, but it has not. (Go, look for yourself!) Only the area outside the fence has been developed. Ditto for all the other cases, eg Chook58 claims here that Googong was culled in 2004 to provide for the Googong Estate development, but the cull was in the reserve around the reservoir and the development was on the Googong and Beltana freehold properties. (Different places with similar names.) Ditto for all the reserves culled, eg Callum Brae, Jerrabomberra East, Jerrabomberra West, Mullanggari, Gungaderra, MT Painter, The Pinnacle, and Mt Majura NATURE RESERVES. They are all there still, not developed and probably never will be developed. Facts matter to some of us. And a map can be a very handy thing when claims are being made about where events took place.

After 14 years of the annual “cull”, killing kangaroos has proved nothing! Developers, with the approval of Andrew Barr and Rebecca Vassarotti, are master designing out kangaroos from the Bush Capital. As far back as 2004 Googong’s population of kangaroos was decimated to make way for the suburb of Googong, in 2007 kangaroos were slaughtered to make way for the suburb of Lawson and on it goes. In Red Hill the killing of kangaroos is to make way for 152 units around the Federal Golf Course.

It is impossible to reconcile the Government’s position for killing kangaroos with the facts.  Their alleged science was exposed as nonsense during the 2009, 2013 and 2014 ACAT hearings, and in numerous well-researched submissions made during “public consultations” on the 2010 and 2017 Kangaroo Management Plans.  The CSIRO Plant Industries Report in 2014 confirms the expert opinion expressed at those hearings.

Many Canberrans are unaware the ACT government has its own cousin of Robodebt, which it is just as wildly inaccurate and even more cruel. ACT’s “Robokill” is a legislated and automated calculator that routinely estimates four times more kangaroo than are actually present on Canberra reserves. Consequently, the kill calculator requires kangaroos are killed much faster than they can possibly replace themselves. With eastern grey kangaroo populations already in steep and alarming decline, reducing their birth rate is no better, from an ecological point of view, than increasing their death rate. Both changes the kangaroo’s gene pool diversity and population dynamics forever.

Instead of wasting hundreds of thousands of public money every year killing kangaroos, Barr and Vassarotti are deliberately ignoring the humane and viable alternative.  That is to build a series of wildlife corridors to connect Canberra’s Nature Reserve system and allow wildlife and people to move around the city safely.

I know it’s not nice but I understand the need for a cull however, I’m not convinced the recent cull is necessary. If anything I suspect it’s got more to do with the real estate expansion then the environment. I’ve noticed the areas they’re culling are where suburbs are being built.

No-one, NO-ONE has committed so much to finding practical ways to do kangaroo fertility control as the ACT Government. With various research partners it has been participating in this effort since 1997, meanwhile keeping an eye on other researchers trialling different agents at Melbourne Uni, Macquarie Uni and Sydney Uni. Now Gonacon, first researched and imported by CSIRO, has proved to be by far the best agent so far. The first female Eastern Grey Kangaroos were treated with Gonacon in 2008, in Canberra, in joint research involving CSIRO, Newcastle Uni and EPSDD. Those females treated with one Gonacon injection as sub-adults lived long infertile lives and grew extra well, having been freed from the cost of reproduction. (Meanwhile another two products trialled at the same time both failed.)

The current population-level deployment in unfenced reserves is a big challenge and will be an international breakthrough if it works well. I can hardly wait for the next few years to hear how it goes.