The Australian Defence Force wages war on kangaroos!

23/5/07 The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has mounted a war on kangaroos on Defence owned land near Canberra. They intend to kill 3200 kangaroos on two sites, claiming that the kangaroos are likely to starve during winter. Naturally, there's much more to it than just that.

The whole kangaroo kill proposal was planned in secret, a deliberately covert undercover operation by both ACT government and ADF to kill the kangaroos before the broader community found out about it. Part of the Belconnen area (which used to be a Naval Radio Station) is proposed for housing development, the rest of the site is heavily contaminated with PCB's and toxins from transformer oil that was buried on the site.

An old ADF battery dump is now covered by Lake Ginnendera, which intrudes into part of the site, and every now and again dead ducks are found floating on the edge of the Lake. The kangaroos are in the contaminated area. We have to wonder if anyone has done a study into incidents of sickness in residents surrounding the Belconnen site.

Little community consultation took place, for the above reasons. There is a research program proposed for Belconnen that would leave 60 males and 40 females alive so experimentation could occur in contraception. We know nothing about this research, although some locals have suggested there may be ethical issues involved.

It also appears there are serious differences of opinion amongst scientists as to the best methods of contraception. It appears the research program may have influenced the decision to kill the kangaroos. The Belconnen military area is barren and largely treeless.

It also appears that contraception proposed may be invasive. If a kangaroo has to be sedated to implement contraception devices, that sedation in itself becomes an issue, as we saw at the ADI site at St Mary's. Kangaroos have only one defence...flight! As soon as a sedated and confused kangaroo wakes up it wants to go, and this is where damage occurs. They try to leap away, can't, fall over, and that's when they break legs, etc.

Some will just keel over and die of myopathy (shock) as they awake.

Restraints for wild kangaroos are impossible to implement. There are also issues with sedation, particullarly when dart guns are used. The best option is to just leave them alone and let them control their own populations, as they've been doing since year dot.

Majura is a large area which has been used since 1911 for a bombing and shooting range. According to military personel we spoke to, unexploded ordinance (UXO's) are eroding into creeks and waterlines. A 25 pounder was found as recently as last week. We are reliably informed that kangaroos on the site sometimes have deformed joeys, and some are born blind.

Googong Dam kangaroo kill!

One tailess kangaroo has been reported seen by a local, getting around Majura quite effectively. Defence claims 4000 kangaroos on the site, but some estimates are as high as 6000 kangaroos, some much less than 4000. No accurate (if there is such a thing!) kangaroo count appears to have been done, probably because of the risk of UXO's. Google Earth shows the whole Majura area here;

Google site map!

Click Map, find Canberra Airport, then scroll North along Majura Road. The ADF area is on the right, about halfway along Majura Road. Then click Satelite or Hybrid for better definition.

Most of the rear of the Majura area is only lightly fenced, and kangaroos come and go through the fences. In one area at the rear of Majura there is the timbered Goorooyaroo Reserve (with little feed) they can use for shelter, but mostly they go onto private property. We understand that some adjacent property owners have been harrassing ADF to shoot the kangaroos. Poison spray programs are being used in Majura to spray broadleafed weeds, we have no idea what poison they are using, but Roundup doesnt kill broadleafed weeds.

ADF has claimed that by eating tussock grasses the kangaroos are responsible for opening up habitat that is used by the Earless Grasslands Dragon, Striped Legless lizard, and the Golden Sunmoth, and reducing their shelter so they can be eaten by predatory birds. These claims are patently nonsense. Kangaroos have co-habited with other species for thousands of years, now all of a sudden they are going to send lizards and moths extinct?

If that truly were the case, it's still no excuse for killing all these kangaroos...all they have to do is provide some lizard habitat, treefall timber ...whatever! Anyway, a story in the Canberra Times on the 20th of May states that ADF is adding another 700 hectares to Majura, adding to the kangaroos habitat.

Neither ADF or ACT government have looked seriously at non-lethal options, such as providing wildlife corridors leading to more habitat. It can be done. The ADF spends 60 million dollars a DAY on military activities, it's not as though they are short of funds to purchase land.

Dr David Croft has come up with the best option...declare the Belconnen Area a Kangaroo Tourism Watching Reserve. It would be so simple to appropriately fence the badly fenced area, and so provide more habitat, then set up a Kangaroo Watching Lookout, and plant trees to attract birds etc. That would be worth millions of dollars to ADF in public relations, and add millions of dollars a year to Canberra tourism.

At first ADF claimed the kangaroos were starving, then said they might starve through the winter. It hasn't been an issue for the last ten years, but all of a sudden "possible starvation" is a reason to kill 400 kangaroos?

Four years ago the NSW NPWS opened up a huge area around the ACT to commercial shooters, an area that had never been commercially shot before. Shooters who had shot out the Western areas moved in, and for the last four years kangaroos have been hammered all around the ACT. This includes reliable reports of commercial shooting inside Namadgi National Park, and recent ABC reports of shooting in other adjacent National Parks.

Kangaroo numbers have never been so low, not just around the ACT, but Australia wide. A newspaper article in the Canberra Times has quoted two kangaroo shooters pleading to be able to commercially shoot the Belconnen and Majura kangaroos. They claim they cant find any kangaroos to shoot anywhere else in NSW, and they have to go to Queensland to shoot wild pigs to make a meagre living. We know that in many areas of NSW kangaroos are regionally extinct, but the NSW NPWS doesnt appear to care whether there are any kangaroos left or not.

The ACT kangaroos cannot be shot commercially because the ACT does not have a Federally approved Kangaroo Management Plan, which is required for a commercial kill. This year the National commercial kill quota is 3.8 million, in spite of a ten year drought, wild fires in every State, and kangaroo numbers crashing Australia wide.

That "quota" doesn't include the unknown millions of kangaroos and wallabies Australia-wide that are shot illegally, and with non-commercial Permits. There's also the issue of potentially contaminated meat from toxins in both ADF areas.

Claims by ACT and ADF that kangaroos do not have joeys during March to July are just plain wrong. Kangaroos breed at any time of the year, based on weather and subsequent food supplies. Locals inform us that there are kangaroos there with joeys, and plenty of feed. I have seen the joeys too, and there is plenty of feed. Some wildlife carers tell us that orphaned joeys are still coming in from the ACT and NSW areas to carers at around 1 and 1/2 kgs, and generally in good condition.

The Defence "consultants" have produced a "facts" sheet, which is short on facts and long on fiction...it can be found here; Read ADF fiction sheet here!

Queanbean wildlife carer Steve Garlick made a statement in the media that says it all..."a symptom of a city failing to come to grips with future planning to mitigate the impact of climate change".

What can you do to help? Email the following addresses and express your concern. Ask the Government not to kill the kangaroos, but implement non-lethal management options!

E-mail; Dr Brendan Nelson, ministerfordefence@defence.gov.au Please note: e-mail correspondence should include your full name and postal address. Responses will not be made by e-mail.

Defence Secretary Nick Warner; nick.warner@defence.gov.au

Update 27/5/07

Federal Police have stopped the issuing of Permits to the Belconnen Defence Site. ACT Government in a knee-jerk reaction have stated they will shoot the kangaroos with a dartgun, then give them a lethal injection. However we understand at this point that Defence have put a hold on the Permits.

Attempting to dart large numbers of kangaroos is a disaster. For full details of how awful darting kangaroos really is, visit the ADI community website

here.

The website features video clips of violent, inhumane treatment of kangaroos by Lend Lease, who purchased the ADI site for housing development.

The photo below shows a kangaroo darted at the ADI site in Syndey. The kangaroo fell into a creek and drowned. More photos are on the ADI website.

In a recent email to us they (Defence) stated that killing the kangaroos was a "last resort" anyway, if all other options fail.

In good faith, Defence went to the ACT government to find a solution to what they saw as a kangaroo over-population problem. The ACT secret service advisory committee then recommended a kill. It also appears that a proposed fertility control research program was the trigger for the kill...at least at Belconnen....they only needed 100 kangaroos to experiment on, not 500.

Just after the disgraceful Googong Dam kangaroo killing fiasco in 2004, the following questions were asked in the ACT Parliament.

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Environment. Minister, on WIN news on 26 July, in relation to the Googong kangaroo cull, you said: "Well I think the behaviour that we've witnessed over the last two weeks is probably explanation enough for why it's best to conduct these things first without consultation, without the gaze of publicity and then to announce what's been achieved."

MRS DUNNE: Unlike with previous culls, you failed to consult the animal welfare advisory committee that is there to advise on these issues. Indeed, the only reason this whole thing became public was that your department letterboxed residents near the Googong reservoir and happened, perchance, to letterbox the environment reporter for the Canberra Times. Otherwise you would have kept most of the population entirely in the dark until the process was finished. Why did you adopt this policy of shooting first and consulting the community afterwards?

Mr Quinlan: (Interupting) The policy was in place, for heaven's sake!

MRS DUNNE: Why are you looking at permanently abandoning the consultation process for kangaroo culls-

Mr Quinlan: (Interupting again) The policy has been laid down over a long period!

MRS DUNNE:-when it was your failure to follow the consultation protocols that caused the trouble in the first place? Do you want me to repeat that?

MR SPEAKER: I would.

MRS DUNNE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why did you adopt this policy of shooting first and consulting the community afterwards? Why are you looking at permanently abandoning the consultation process for kangaroo culls when it was your failure to follow consultation processes that caused the problem in the first place?

MR STANHOPE: (ACT Chief Minister) I support the processes put in place by Environment ACT. It was a most difficult and quite complex issue that they faced in culling kangaroos at Googong. These are never easy issues. I believe the advice I received in relation to the basis for the cull was soundly based. I believed that when I was initially advised; I believed it when I approved the cull; and I believe it now. No issue or program like the culling of kangaroos, or indeed the culling of any animal, can be achieved without arousing quite significant emotion and concern. It can arouse emotional and, at times, quite unreasonable, responses, which we experienced. I have to say I applaud the way in which Environment ACT handled this whole matter and I continue to support them.

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, in accordance with standing order 118 (a): I asked the question, basically, why has he abandoned community consultation? No-one has an issue here, I think, with the nature of the cull; the question was about why was there no community consultation. *End

What can we say...Government by secrecy? For more info about the real reason for the Googong Dam kangaroo kill click below...

Googong Dam kangaroo kill!

Commonsense Prevails!

On the 5th of July at a stakeholders meeting, Defence announced it would not kill the kangaroos at Belconnen or Majura. Defence stated they would look at non-lethal kangaroo management options.

We congratulate Defence for their decision, made in spite of the fact that the academics and researchers were enthusiastic about killing them, and then attacked the wildlife groups present at the meeting for wanting to protect them!

To their credit, Defence listened to the wildlife groups, who collectively knew more about kangaroo managment than all of the academics present put together, one of whom blamed the kangaroos for sending birds extinct.

For more information about this landmark decision, visit Kangamail Archives.