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Brutal “conservation cull” of ACT kangaroos – carnage wrapped in environmental language!

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More than 2,600 Kangaroos to be violently slaughtered in 2017, based on what’s condemned by wildlife carers as fraudulent flawed Acts, Plans. and Strategies.  

The closures will start from Wednesday, May 17, in Canberra and Googong Foreshores.

This carnage will occur at 12 sites,  closed for what’s ironically, and contradictorily called a “conservation cull”. 

The sites are Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve, Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve, Mount Majura Nature Reserve and adjacent territory land, Kama Nature Reserve, Mount Painter Nature Reserve and adjacent territory land, The Pinnacle Nature Reserve and adjacent unleased land, Mount Mugga Mugga Nature Reserve, Isaacs Ridge Nature Reserves, …Callum Brae Nature Reserve, East Jerrabomberra Grasslands, West Jerrabomberra Nature Reserve, and Googong Foreshores.  These “Nature” reserves will be shut to the public while they are killing fields!

These violent killings are not culls, and are not for Conservation purposes. Our Kangaroos being driven to extinction, weakening the species genetically altering our Kangaroos committed by over killing and the infertility programs.

Danger- do not enter

(image: Animals Australia)

So “nature” doesn’t include native kangaroos?  What’s not “native” about the conservation of kangaroos?  Eastern Grey Kangaroos (EGK) are now maligned as a threat to Nature, and on the level of feral, invasive species?

The closures will start from Wednesday, May 17, in Canberra and Googong Foreshores. 

“The conservation cull… is needed to protect biodiversity and maintain populations at appropriate levels to minimise impacts on other flora and fauna in critical grassland and woodland sites,” Director of parks and conservation Daniel Iglesias says.  He says that the “culling of overabundant kangaroos is currently the most humane method of population control available to the ACT Government as a responsible land manager…”.

So according to park manager, Iglesias, employed by the ACT government, EGK are not part of our nation’s biodiversity, and are NOT part of our flora and fauna – they only “impact” on it and destroy it?

Just what empirical evidence supports his assumption that the kangaroos are “over abundant”?  In a report and map prepared by field ecologist Ray Mjadwesch in 2013, Professor Garlick said eastern grey kangaroos were already gone from 26.6 per cent of the territory because of urban land use, and a further 29.9 per cent of the animals were under pressure.

Literature written by ecologist Dan Ramp (University of NSW) describes the importance of kangaroos in protecting threatened and endangered species from decline:-

‘Native herbivores such as kangaroos and wombats, play a vital role in ecosystem functioning but are often victimized and treated with lack of concern because of socio-political factors and historical value judgements rather than heeding biological and ecological information.’

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According to Lady Nora Preston, Western Creek, (Wildlife Carers Group Inc)  the Animal Welfare and Management Strategy 2017-2022 should protect all animals, and recognise  animals as being sentient beings.  It’s contradictory with regards to:

1. the violent Nature Conservation Act 2014

2. the violent Eastern Grey Kangaroos Draft Controlled Native Species Management Plan:

3. the violent Code of Practice,

4. the Ethics Committee that allows violence and suffering

5. the Kangaroo Management Plan

6. the ACT Kangaroo Management Plan (ACT Government 2010) and subsidiary policy instruments

7. Draft ACT Pest Animal Management Strategy 2011-2021: https://wildlifecarersgroup.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/amendments-darting-currawongs-rspca-draft-act-pest-animal-management-strategy-2011-2021/

8. Draft ACT Native Grasslands Conservation Strategy – https://wildlifecarersgroup.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/wildlife-carers-group-submission-draft-act-native-grasslands-conservation-strategy-closes-12-may-2017/ that is consistent with

9. the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013-23 (ACT Government 2013a) and

10. their accusation is that the  2005 Lowland Grassland Conservation Strategy is all based on (allegedly) fraudulent reports on the Eastern Grey Kangaroos, etc.

There’s a difference between the science of zoology, conservation, environmental science and being a park-ranger manager!  Management of a park, or Nature reserve, clearly is not based on promoting natural systems, or supporting flora and fauna.  Rather it is based  on manipulating what governments dictate and then wrapping the policies in neat, environmental-language to make it sound like legitimate “conservation”.  No doubt the real motive for this “conservation cull” of native kangaroos is not about protecting other species, or grasslands, but a more prosaic way of limiting vehicle accidents, and releasing more land for urban sprawl!

This so-called “conservation cull” is human-based, and it’s “junk science” to fit what’s already deemed a fact that there’s an “over-abundance” of kangaroos in the ACT – once called the Bush Capital!

Once land is “vacant”, and devoid, of the more obvious native animals – kangaroos- then it’s seemingly barren, only suitable for “development”  – aka urban sprawl.

The area below is called Lawson,  and is a ‘land development site‘.  It covers the entire naval base. So much for the government’s worry about vulnerable species being in this area – which is the same reason they gave why the kangaroos had to be killed.

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(image:  Above: the place at Lawson, ACT., Australia, where 500 kangaroos were herded and killed in 2008.  http://www.kangaroolives.com/condemned.htm)

(image: There were plans to build 1850 dwellings plus 199 single residential at Lawson, 2013. ACT government.  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-04/buyers-snap-up-land-at-new-canberra-suburb-of-lawson/5133156.  So how will the vulnerable species fare?)

Out of 41 Submissions that were received, 31 Submissions opposed this Eastern Grey Kangaroos Draft Controlled Native Species Management Plan, and only 10 Submissions supported this Plan. A good enough reason NOT to go ahead with this Plan and to abolish it.  So why have these “submissions” matter at all if they have already decided that maligned policy of “culling”?

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(image: Kangaroos run from an official in a vehicle on the base.The driver, incidentally, drives straight across the 'vulnerable' grasslands. Sunset, March 31, 2008  http://www.kangaroolives.com/condemned.htm )

(featured image: Animals Australia http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/in_the_news.php?article=3345)

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End the cruel slaughter of kangaroos on public reserves: Petition

Letter to:
Minister for Territory and Municipal Services Shane Rattenbury
Chief Minister Andrew Barr
Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Simon Corbell
by Frankie Seymour Queanbeyan, NSW

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The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government has announced yet another slaughter of eastern grey kangaroos (EGKs) on its own nature reserves in the winter of 2015.

The government claims, without any coherent supporting evidence, that kangaroo grazing is a threat to the very ecosystems of which kangaroos have been an integral part for around five million years. The government continues to slaughter these creatures, despite having done no work to monitor or evaluate the impact or effectiveness of the killing program.

As well as being an ecological disaster, the slaughter causes immeasurable suffering to the animals. Adults that do not die instantly from the first shot are stabbed and clubbed to death, or escape to die slowly of their wounds. Even the survivors often injure themselves in their panic, or die on the roads trying to escape, or live to suffer the emotional distress and disruption to the mob’s social structure. Pouch young and young at foot are bludgeoned to death or left to starve.

In his response to this petition in 2014, Minister Shane Rattenbury implies that eastern grey kangaroos are a threat to species such as Grassland Earless Dragons, the Striped Legless Lizard, Perunga Grasshoppers, Coorooboorama Raspy Crickets and Ginninderra Peppercress. At the Administrative Reviews of 2013 and 2014, this claim was shown to be completely untrue. In fact, in an adjoining reserve just across the NSW border, where kangaroos are never culled, several of these species are recovering far more quickly than on the ACT reserves where massive kangaroos culling is conducted every year. The government’s own ecologist admitted that the government’s assertions about kangaroos being a threat to vulnerable species were just “PR”.

Rattenbury asserts that “critical conservation areas are under threat from overgrazing by kangaroo populations, which leads to a deterioration in the quality of the grasslands. This in turn puts pressure on the species that rely on this habitat”. In fact, the ACT government has consistently failed to produce any evidence that kangaroos (other than in captive situations) ever have overgrazed any area. The evidence shows that these animals manage their own populations without human intervention. Overgrazing in Australia is the sole preserve of introduced animals, such as sheep and cattle, which damage the fragile, shallow soils with their heavy bodies, low grazing and hard hooves.

Rattenbury asserts that “conditions in the ACT region are very favourable for Eastern Grey Kangaroos, contributing to an extremely high kangaroo population. Eastern Grey Kangaroos are the most numerous species of macropod in Australia, and their conservation status is not threatened.” Many ecology experts who have actually studied the population dynamics of eastern grey kangaroos consider their numbers to be in steep decline and deep trouble, both in the ACT region and throughout their range.

Rattenbury asserts that “the numbers to be culled have been based on scientific kangaroo counts in each location. This has been compared to the sustainable carrying capacity for each area that ACT Government ecologists have established by taking into account the habitat requirements of grassland dependent animals and plants.” Independent ecology experts have disputed:
(1) the government’s models for determining the sustainable kangaroos carrying capacity of reserves,
(2) their methods for counting them, and
(3) their models for estimating actual numbers. The government is well aware of this expert criticism of their calculations.

Rattenbury notes that “the ACT Government has since undertaken a peer review of how cull numbers are determined, which supported the ACT Government’s continuation of kangaroo management activities this year.” This so-called peer review has itself been peer-reviewed, most unfavourably, by a retired CSIRO plant scientist with vast experience in evaluating peer reviews.

Rattenbury asserts that “The conservation cull will be conducted according to a strict Code of Practice that has the endorsement of all relevant authorities including the RSPCA.” In fact, Rattenbury has rejected the Code of Practice prepared and recommended by his own Animal Welfare Advisory Committee in favour of the “national” code of practice which provides a lowest common denominator model intended as a baseline for states to their develop their own codes of practice.

In 2012, at least one of the culled kangaroos was found to have been shot, stabbed and bludgeoned before dying of suffocation and/or blood loss. In 2014, the government’s own expert witness admitted that, during each cull, an entire generation of young at foot are routinely left orphaned to starve or otherwise die without adult protection.

Sign the Petition:

Petition-Canberra

(Featured image: Canberra kangaroos)

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