Kangaroo Chiller Box Inspection Report!

Report on Inspections of kangaroo and wild pig chiller holding boxes in NSW and Queensland.

During February and March 2006, in the company of other interested persons from Animal Lib NSW, I drove over 7000 kilometres around NSW and Queensland inspecting kangaroo chiller boxes. On one occasion I was in the company of a private detective who took video footage of some of the chiller boxes. These boxes are old, discarded shipping containers, originally built for shipping carton meat and/or sheep carcases and beef quarters overseas.

Almost all were in a poor state of repair, with holes in the doors, broken trim inside the boxes, and very unhygienic. Pigs and kangaroo carcasses were often in the same chillers. Pigs with high levels of mud and blood caked to their hides were hanging up alongside kangaroos. Cross contamination was obvious, and would be worse when loaded onto packed trucks for transport to processing plants over rough outback roads.

All the boxes except one had high levels of female animals in comparison to males. As an example, one contained 90 kangaroo carcasses, of which 70 were female. Another had 30 kangaroos, 24 of which were female. Another had 90 kangaroos, of which 65 were female. Another had 25 female kangaroos to 19 males, 9 kangaroo carcasses were between 13 and 15 kgs in weight. Another with 22 kangaroos had 16 that were female.

Kangaroo scientist Hugh Lavery in his book ‘The Kangaroo Keepers’ says that a kill of 50% females in any wildlife species is a recipe for extinction. Most of the kangaroos were small animals, some were under the minimum size limit, and many were so small they may not have had a joey yet, especially the red females, who don’t breed until they are bit older than the grey kangaroos.

NSW has lower size limit of 13 kgs, and Queensland 15 kgs, for human consumption. I understand that in chiller boxes close to the Border, 13 kg kangas are brought from Queensland into NSW to be sold. All kangaroos from NSW area now used for human consumption, because the price is higher, and the animals are scarcer..

On 26/2/06 I took samples for micro-biological testing from some of the chillers. As a former butcher and meatworker I am quite familiar with the process. Many of the kangaroos in the chillers contained fecal contamination inside the bodies. Biotest analysis 3.03.03.02 showed a high level of contamination from body interiors and from floor tests of >1.1x10/3. No listeria or salmonella was found, and for this bio-test we didn’t test for eColi.

Further bio-tests taken on 15/3/06 showed high levels of faecal coliforms (>1.1x10.3) and e.Coli (>1.1x10.3) from swabs taken from inside kangaroo carcases.

Only one chiller of all those inspected had a 50-50 balance of males to females, and they were larger kangaroos. It’s my belief they were either shot in the non-commercial zone, or from a property the hadn't been shot before, or from a National Park, or another State, but I have no evidence of this.

As shown in some of the photos, many of the kangaroos had short necks. This means that they were shot in the neck, and the heads cut off below the bullet hole. As the shooters get paid by weight, they usually leave the necks as long as possible.

We didn’t see any evidence of body shot kangaroos, but it’s hard to tell when the skins are still on them. We do know, as the photos from the processing plants show, that body shot kangaroos are still accepted in the processing plants, and the shooters are paid for a half of a kangaroo. We have documentary evidence of this.

Kangaroo populations especially in NSW have crashed. In all the kilometres travelled we only saw 6 or 8 road kills, and only in the far Western areas. Photos (see below) in the extreme drought areas show green pick going to seed on the roadside verges, because there are no kangaroos left to graze it.

Much of the Western country is under cultivation for irrigated and dryland sorgum, cotton and sunflower seed. There is little refuge for kangaroos.

In one very remote area of NSW we saw a small group of small kangaroos (about 20) grazing on some green pick after a storm. We also saw countless numbers of wild goats. In another trip of 2500 km we only saw five kangaroos. Discussions we had with rural residents at servos and cafes suggested that the kangaroos were gone. One far-Western farmer with 6500 acres said she had four small kangaroos living around her dam for some months, but hadn’t seen any others.

Many shooters had given up shooting, and many chiller boxes have been closed during the last few months because they can’t find enough kangaroos. It’s quite obvious that the counting methodology used by the State governments, and the estimates of numbers, is a blatant lie. Kangaroo populations have crashed. That’s why the Industry is lobbying governments to open new commercial shooting areas in Queensland and NSW, and in Victoria and the Northern territory.

The Federal government in 2007 claims there are 25 million kangaroos in Asutralia, but not even the NSW kangaroo shooters can find them! Nor could we!

There is no reason to believe the situation in South Australia or Western Australia are any different, in fact they are probably worse. As well as continuing to watch the situation on Queensland and NSW, we will also be paying close attention to the other two States in the very near future.

We do know that the Industry has been heavily lobbying the Northern Territory and Victorian governments to open a commercial kill. The Victorian commercial kill was stopped in 1982 when kangaroo numbers became too low to be profitable, and the NT has never had one.

Its also interesting to note that the five-year 2001 NSW Kangaroo Management Plan expired at the end of last year, (2006) and they have had a new 2007 t0 2012 Plan approved by the Feds. In 2002 we appealed the 2001 NSW Plan in the Federal Administration Appeals Tribunal but lost the Appeal.

Late in 2006 the EPBC Act was amended by the Feds to stop us from appealing Wildlife Managment Plans any more, and so the 2007 Managment Plan is the last one we can ever Appeal.

Immediately the Appeal was lost in 2002, the hygiene standards introduced in 1996 were altered, and significant changes were made to reduce the hygiene requirements so that fewer carcases would be condemned. And another new, huge area around Canberra was also opened to commercial shooting.

Clearly the commercial shooting of kangaroos is out of control and totally unmanageable.

In spite of all the concerns we have expressed during the last 40 years about the mis-management of this Industry, the government has ignored those concerns, and has ‘managed’ our gentle Aussie icon populations into a state of near collapse.

This desperate situation is entirely the NSW State Government’s fault, for not properly overseeing and monitoring the Management Program, and the bureaucrats that run it.

They have lied to us, to the AAT, to the Federal Government, and to the public. We now call on the Federal Government to use its powers under the Federal EPBC Act to close the commercial and non-commercial kangaroo kill immediately.

Note; Further inspections have since been made, and the results will be made public in due course.

Pat O’Brien

President, Wildlife Protection Assn of Australia, Inc. Coordinator, National Kangaroo Protection Coalition. Wildlife Division Representative, Animals Australia.