The Truth and the reality is out There, but getting it 'out there' is not easy!16th April, 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald was to run a story about the kangaroo bush meat Industry on Monday 16th, April, but over the weekend the Industry threatened to serve an injuction to stop the story from running, and there would now be a Hearing on Monday instead..... They held the story over for legal advice, and then printed it on Wednesday the 18th. Unfortunately the shooting in the US pushed the story to the back of the paper, but it is copied below. The story is about our year long covert operations, and our inspections of chiller boxes and Industry practices. Although we tried Current Affair, 60 Minutes etc, none of them were prepared to run this story, except the Sydney Morning Herald. Eighteen months or so ago, the Australian even sent two senior journalists out to Western NSW, and ran a two page spread about how kangaroos were devastating the land for poor farmers. No mention of the damage cattle and sheep were doing in the arid and semi-arid lands! The kangaroos even got blamed for prolonging the drought!
We shouldn't forget either that the the media barons own large sheep and cattle properties themselves, and it's in their own interest to shoot the kangaroos. That's partly why there has been a few media stories lately, supporting the kangaroo Industry, and supporting the consumption of kangaroo steaks! Until now, almost all other media sources have refused to print stories against the kangaroo Industry. We know the journalists are keen to run kangaroo stories, but when they do, they mostly get dumped at Editorial level, just as the SMH story nearly did. However the Sydney Morning Herald has thrown caution to the wind, and finally ran the story of our adventures in the Western NSW and Queensland kangaroo Industry La La Land. And our excursions were a fairly hairy experience too. We were chased late one night by armed kangaroo shooters, we met some great friendly Western farmers, we went without food, and in some areas found it almost impossible to get hold of a cold beer! But we persevered, because our kangaroos depended on us. Tha story is below. This article puts a crack in the Dam wall that has prevented us from making this information public. Next week we are a holding a Press Conference to release more information in our long-running campaign to protect our beautiful kangaroos from being turned into bush meat....... **************************************************************** Activists from two Australian animal rights organisations will start a campaign of street demonstrations, political lobbying and media appearances in Europe next week to promote their claims that kangaroo meat production is unhygienic. Using videos and photos of kangaroo carcasses and results of swabs they say were collected from dead kangaroos inside NSW chillers, they will target the major kangaroo meat markets of Russia, Germany, Belgium and France in an attempt to stem the growing human appetite for eating our national icon. A representative of the Wildlife Protection Association, Mark Pearson, and a project officer with Animal Liberation, Angie Stephenson, say they have evidence that kangaroo carcasses in some chillers used by Australia's largest exporter are contaminated with fecal matter, E. coli and other micro-organisms. Their organisations paid for analysis of the swabs, which they say were collected from chillers used by the exporter, Vacik Distributors. But chillers are used to hold carcasses en route to a factory, and Mr Pearson conceded he had no evidence of meat leaving the company's processing plant being contaminated. Both the company and the Kangaroo Industry Association say stringent checks mean the meat is completely safe. Mr Pearson and Miss Stephenson will begin their campaign in the largest market of Moscow, where they will target the local Australian Open restaurant, which serves kangaroo stew, which online guide of the Moscow Times also advises should be avoided for culinary reasons. The pair also plan to tell Europeans that kangaroo shooting is cruel and say they have documentary and photographic evidence that some kangaroos have been shot in the body - not with the single clean bullet to the head required by an industry-regulated code of practice. "There was an outcry in Europe about the killing in Norway and Canada of the harp seals," Mr Pearson said. "We will be saying the killing of the harp seals is a Sunday picnic compared to the killing of kangaroos in Australia." Armed with kangaroo masks and large pictures of cuddly joeys for demonstrations, they plan to hold media conferences outside Australian embassies and to lobby key members of the European Commission in Brussels. Their aim is to end the growing export of kangaroo meat for human consumption - worth about $200 million a year - and to halt the annual cull. This year's government-approved quotas allow 3.8 million kangaroos to be killed nationwide. Mr Pearson says he also has evidence that in some instances temperatures in chillers and transport trucks holding kangaroo carcasses exceeded the recommended seven degrees. Victor Bates, director of Vacik Distributors, said the claims by the two groups were completely unfounded. Carcasses that were contaminated in any way, that had been shot in breach of the code or that had been held or transported in excessive temperatures were condemned and would not be processed at his company's factory, he said. "Every animal is inspected by an [Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service] meat inspector under supervision of a veterinary surgeon. We carry out stringent bacterial controls throughout the factory on a daily basis." The temperature in trucks was recorded on a graph and an AQIS vet checked each load of carcasses as it arrived at the factory, he said. A spokesman for the Kangaroo Industry Association, John Kelly, said any test results the groups were using had to be questioned because government-controlled test systems ensured that the meat was perfectly safe. "The saddest part of it is these people are attempting to shut down an industry which is hailed almost universally by Australian scientists as delivering beautiful environmental models of how we should utilise this land." *Debra Jobson, Sydney Morning Herald ****************************************************************
**************************************************************** On the 23rd of April 2007, we held a Press Conference in Sydney about the kangaroo kill. We had a very good media rollup, but few stories made the Press. SBS TV ran a very bad story supporting the kill, but apart from that..... nothing! We have to assume that the various Editor's blocked the story going out, and wouldn't run them. Photoes below are of Angie and Sally from Animal Lib NSW, and Pat O'Brien from the Wildlife Protection Assn of Australia Inc.
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