Pet food “trail” of kangaroo meat inevitably a success!
About 71,000 kangaroos across Victoria have been used to make pet food as part of the trial to reduce waste from legal culling. The trial – which covers 16 local government areas including Southern Grampians and Glenelg shires – is due to end in March next year. The initial two-year trial was extended by two years – was it ever going to be questioned, or abandoned?
So the liberal distribution of Authority to Control (kill) Wildlife (ATCW) has inadvertently produced “waste” kangaroo meat? The kangaroos causing alleged “damage” to land-holders’ property can be shot and instead of being left to rot, and waste, can now produced meat for pets? How convenient? Rather than damage-control, sounds more like an industry thinly disguised as Management!
The word “cull” is a misnomer too. It’s a word to describe to kill the weaker animals in a group in order to reduce their numbers. To save remaining herds and habitat… (Collins English Dictionary). On the contrary, this killing is about profits, of killing the best of the stock, not weaker animals. The best pet food would not be those that are dying and sick, but healthy, visible and viable as a commercial product!
Victorian Pet Food Processors operations manager David Preece said “the trial had provided jobs for about 25 people and provided other workers with more hours.” So it was inevitable that the so-called “trial” would be successful, due to economic benefits and jobs?
The intent of this kangaroo pet meat trial has nothing to do with environmental values, conservation, animals welfare, protection of our ancient and iconic species, or touristic revenues. It’s about $$$ and denuding the State of “pest” kangaroos!
DELWP and Primesafe claim that … “the trial is not intended to increase the number of kangaroos controlled, rather it is to reduce the waste of carcasses from kangaroos that would have been controlled regardless of the trial…” So, the fact that land-holders, shooters and processors and the rest of the supply chain are rewarded economically has nothing to do with the increased number of kangaroos being “controlled”?
Magnanimously, on its website, DELWP said kangaroo populations were managed to “prevent crashing — or dying in large numbers from starvation during droughts — to prevent damage to vulnerable native vegetation and habitat from overgrazing, to allow heavily grazed areas to regenerate or to protect water catchments”. So they *might starve*, so kill them first?
Back in 2016, 25,000 roos were set to be “managed”, but now it’s 71,000? According to The Age article, the number of Eastern Grey kangaroos allowed to be killed in Victoria had more than doubled in the two years the government has permitted the commercial processing of kangaroo meat.
DELWP and Primesafe claim that “the trial does not change the requirement for a landholder applying for an ATCW to demonstrate that kangaroos are causing damage to their property….” Just now many compliant officers are available to check the properties of each ATCW applicant and recommend alternative, non-lethal control methods?
(Hon Liliana (Lily) D'Ambrosio, Minister for Energy, Environment)and Climate Change)
- The kangaroo meat ‘trial’ was never meant to be scrapped, or really be a ‘trail”, but a method of introducing a commercial kangaroo meat industry into Victoria, by stealth!
LINKS:
http://www.standard.net.au/story/4838812/call-to-extend-kangaroo-pet-food-trial/
