Whales and Kangaroos...whats the difference?
All over the world many people have expressed outrage over the illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. Calls for boycotts of Japanese products have been made, and for quite a few years now, many Australians have personally refused to purchase goods made in Japan, because of their opposition to the whaling. Which is tragic, because ALL of the Japanese tourists I speak to are opposed to the whaling too. They have no more control over their Governments support for whaling, than Australians had when the Howard Government invaded Iraq. Recent photos released by a lethargic Federal Government of a mother whale and calf being dragged into the bowels of the floating slaughterhouse, have really outraged many Australians......the same Australians who turn a blind eye to the horrors of the commercial kangaroo kill.
Before someone accuses us of being whale haters, in the past our anti-whaling campaigns have been quite successful. I personally was heavily involved in the campaign to declare the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, and we encouraged almost every school in the area to lobby for the Sanctuary as well. We were so successful in putting pressure on whalers that the Norwegian ambassador wrote personally to our local paper pleading for understanding of their side of the issue. And eventually we won the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. I have swum with whales, I've been woken up in the middle of the night by a whale scraping barnacles off on my anchor chain. Along with an at-the-time-junior reporter Karl Stephanovic, we watched in delight as a mother whale deliberately swam alongside our boat...bringing her calf right in close so we could see it!
A helpless joey killed by a commercial shooter under the Federal Government Code of Practice guidelines....just a by-product of the commercial kill Last year the former Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull was outraged that the Japanese could dare to suggest that we had no right to criticise Japanese whalers when we brutally killed 3 or 4 million kangaroos, and their babies, every year. He angrily declared that the kangaroo kill was sustainable, rigorously monitored, and was totally different matter to whaling. But is it? Those readers who have surfed through this kangaroo protection website would have to agree that there are issues with the commercial kangaroo kill that need to be addressed. My involvement and opposition to the commercial kangaroo kill goes back many years. In 13 years of sitting on the Queensland Kangaroo Management Advisory Committee (which now seems to be defunct) I saw and heard nothing that convinced me that the kill should continue. The groups I work with have often said "If there has to be commercial kill" (and not suggesting they would support one), "it must be humane, sustainable, and transparent, and of course, it's currently none of those things". The new Draft Code of Practice (released for public comment in January 2008) while totally unenforcable, requires that after the mother is killed, the smaller in-pouch joey should be decapitated, and a larger joey should be killed with a properly executed heavy blow to destroy the brain, or by shooting in the brain. This last requirement is totally ridiculous, imagine an an expouch joey racing around in terror after this mother is killed....and they tell the shooter to shoot it in the brain....at night......
Kangaroo body parts left in the paddock. Of course in most cases the larger dependent but expouch joey, usually races away into the night in terror when his mother is shot, and later dies of exposure and/or predation. If he does return to look for his mother later, all he finds is her head, her entrails, and her feet. So how do our politicians justify their support for the kangaroo kill in the face of very clear evidence that it is inhumane and unsustainable? And how do they justify their opposition to the whaling while we Australians do such terrible things to our most prominent and recognisable native animal? An animal that is recognised worldwide as the most wellknown tourism icon after the Statue of Liberty? And how can the politicians live with themselves after opposing the whaling, while supporting an even bigger and crueler Industry .....the commercial kangaroo kill.
Above, small 13kg kangaroos in a chiller box. At this age and size, they would never have had a joey. Sustainable? Not likely! One of the arguements Australian politicians use to ease their conscience is that whaling is claimed to be for scientific research, but the meat is sold. Whereas the commercial kangaroo kill is an Industry in its own right....but of course the meat is still sold. And it's still inhumane. So whats the difference? (They no longer kill kangaroos for damage mitigation, the government departments decided a few years ago that the kangaroo is a "renewable resource".) Both whaling and the kangaroo kill are clearly inhumane Industries that benefit only a few, and even the Federal Government in its own State of the Environment Report 2007, admited there's no data to show the kangaroo kill is sustainable. Naturally they rewrote the Report when we started quoting them! (Canberra Times Report 8/01/08) So what's the difference between killing whales and killing kangaroos? None at all, as far as we can see. But why don't the big multi-millionaire International groups work to oppose the kangaroo kill if it's so bad? Well....I don't know....I guess you'll have to ask them. Pat O'Brien, NKPC Coordinator.
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