BY PAT O'BRIEN
We all know that land degradation and salinity are some of the biggest environmental problems that Australia faces. Currently in Queensland alone, around 100 times more trees are being cleared than are being planted. So what about getting rid of hard-hoofed animals that do so much damage to the soil and farm or harvest kangaroos instead?
There is plenty of information to show that the hoary old argument that soft-footed are better for the land than hard-hoofed animals is nothing but a fairy tale. In fact, it is a theory that is used by some people to avoid facing the reality of land degradation. "If we only farmed roos instead of cattle and sheep, everything will be all right!", they say.
In a perfect world, replacing beef cattle and sheep with soft-footed kangaroos may have some merit. However, this is very much less than a perfect world and that is why those advocating the harvesting of wildlife should be challenged.
Australia's export markets demand beef and sheep meat, not roo meat. If Australia's farmers don't supply it, farmers in Argentina, the US or somewhere else will.
The economics don't add up. It can take 12 years or so for a kangaroo to become full grown, and even then it produces only 10 kilograms or so of useable meat, worth $1.50/kilogram. A two-year-old bullock produces 200 kilograms or so of useable meat, worth $8/kilogram. A lamb produces 20 kilograms of useable meat by the time it is 3-6 months old. As well, kangaroos cannot replace Australia's billion-dollar wool clip.
If we wanted to replace Australia's beef production with kangaroo meat, the entire Australian roo population would have to be killed about 40 times each year.
It's not the effect of hard-hoofed animals on our fragile soils per se that causes land degradation. It is too many hard-hoofed animals on too much marginal land.
There are many Australian farmers who manage their land well, who do not overgraze, who plant more trees and allow regrowth, use cell grazing and water retention techniques, fence adequately and don't kill the wildlife. These farmers have fewer land degradation problems.
It is important to note that harmful farming practices take place under the hammer of economic demands which push farmers to do things that destroy the environment, things that they may not have done otherwise.
The real issue is whether we should be farming in arid and semi-arid zones at all. In the 1980s, a campaign was undertaken to encourage the human consumption of culled kangaroo meat as a "management option", even to the extent of surreptitiously changing legislation to allow paddock-killed kangaroo meat to be sold in butcher shops and delicatessens. The known risk to human health from kangaroo meat was ignored.
A code of practice for shooters, a shooter accreditation system and a mythical concept of adequate hygiene in the field were developed, all without public input. All the requirements were regulated by the shooters themselves.
The code of practice recommends cutting the head off any joeys from killed females with a sharp knife, or smashing their head in with an iron pipe.
These regulations were so unsuccessful that for at least a year, kangaroo meat from blind, virus-stricken kangaroos was sold for human consumption, including for export, in at least four states. A number of cases of toxoplasmosis from kangaroo meat occurred, including a child born blind in Queensland after the mother contracted the disease from under-cooked kangaroo meat.
In spite of the taxpayer-funded campaign, most Australians show little enthusiasm for eating roos. Few butcher shops will risk handling the meat.
The national kangaroo cull of around six million animals is calculated on several incorrect propositions: that kangaroos have increased in numbers since white settlement; that dingoes and Aborigines were substantial predators of kangaroos; that kangaroos are major competitors for grazing and cropping; and that commercial culling reduces kangaroo numbers.
Models based on the available grazing resources and livestock numbers have shown that Australia was capable of sustaining over 400 million large marsupials before European settlement. Environment Australia currently estimates red and grey kangaroo populations at between 20 and 30 million.
Historical records show that Aboriginal hunting of kangaroos, when successful, was not a common practice when other more easily gathered protein was available. Dingoes are usually solitary hunters, incapable of pulling down a large healthy kangaroo.
Several scientific studies have shown that, except on marginal land, or in extreme drought situations, kangaroos are not significant competitors to cropping and grazing.
When a commercial shooter kills the larger animals, often mob patriarchs and matriarchs (often barren or infertile), the younger and more fertile animals begin breeding. Many graziers will not allow commercial culling on their properties for this reason.
In the last 10 years, countless millions of kangaroos have been commercially "harvested", yet Australia has four million more cattle, and nearly as many sheep as the country ever had. Killing all those kangaroos didn't reduce sheep and cattle numbers, nor did it do anything to resolve land degradation.
It has, however, put considerable stress on kangaroo populations. Recent research from NSW shows that the average age and weight of red kangaroos is only 2 years and 18 kilograms, compared to 30 years and 80 kilograms for mature animals. It's not surprising that no non-government conservation organisation in Australia supports commercial consumption of kangaroos.
The same arguments that we now hear to support the roo industry are the same ones that used to be used to support whaling: it creates jobs and export dollars.
According to the federal government, tourism expenditure in Australia totals over $60 billion. The Australian tourism industry employs more than 500,000 people, 6% of Australia's work force. The kangaroo industry claims to be worth $200 million, in reality probably very much less, and employs a few hundred mostly part-time workers.
When the commercial kangaroo kill is finally ended, the few jobs and the export dollars lost can be replaced many times over by tourism opportunities, as people will want to see large mobs of kangaroos in their natural environment.
There is no independent evidence that any wildlife harvesting, anywhere in the world, is sustainable. The biggest problem with the "sustainable use" theory is that there is no such thing. Eventually you run out of animals to use.
[Pat O'Brien is president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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