Australia to shoot 6,000 kangaroos

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
reply to post by pazcat

 

That's a completely irrelevant point

What's with aussies man? (kidding)

But seriously man, do you guys think you live on Mars and we earthlings are incapable of understanding your surroundings?

Did you miss the post of how thousands are starving to death?

Is it better to let it run around half dead for months suffering?

And how many zoos are there in the world? Would you like each to take 100 Kangaroos?

Originally posted by ModernAcademia

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
It's obvious you do not come from Australia, you do not know anything about our country and you do not have a shred of understanding about how kangaroo populations decimate the environment. Educate yourself!

You're way out of your depth!

Sorry bro but your argument is void

People can't understand anything that is not in their country?
what kind of comment is that?

So nobody here should comment about Iraq, China, Israel, Iran???????
What kind of thinking is that?

What is right remains right regardless of location.
Come on man, what is this?

I think you have completely missed his point.

From how I read it, the most important point was that kangaroo populations decimate the environment. And I certainly agree that if you lived here in Australia then you would better understand the situation. (Just like if I lived in any of the nations that you mentioned then I would better understand any situation/s they are currently in)

These are the choices: Let the roo's starve to death (not a pleasant way for any living creature to go, obviously), while they destroy countless other animals' food resources and habitats, and create a dangerous environment for us to live in.

I myself have witnessed many car accidents caused by roo's jumping across roads, I have read the news articles about roo's attacking dogs and people while walking.

Or, they can be culled. As inhumane as it may seem, the alternative is even worse, I believe.

The main concern is the habitat destruction and countless roo's starving to death. Humans are (arguably) smart, so we should be able to avoid any "conflicts" that arise with roo's. But the fact is that threat remains. I lived in Canberra (the roo's are all over the suburban areas in Canberra, not sure about areas in Australia) for the majority of my life and I guarantee you that crossing the path of a kangaroo is a very dangerous thing to do.

Relocation would not work. Where would they be moved to? A nature reserve or wildlife park? Again, they would just over-populate and the same problems would be there.

Then what? The desert? Where they would just starve to death anyway?

If there is any zoo out there in the world that is willing to take thousands of kangaroos then I'm sure they're more than welcome to them.

It is most definitely sad that the kangaroo, a symbol of our nation, has become such a problem that they need to be culled, but such is life.

I have faith that a group of people smarter than you or I have come up with this solution after much, much deliberation. I do not believe this was a decision that was made lightly.

I have missed no points, however many of you have missed mine.
I didn't miss the point of the threat roos present.
I never said do nothing

I said do something, just not mass slaugther
what am I not conveying properly here?

the guy above me listed a few things that he thought of in.... a 10 second timeframe?

That's all that 6000 roos get? 10 seconds of your time, if nothing positive comes out of those 10 seconds then too bad for them?

If you really want to make an argument, how about you actually devote some time and think of a solution without going in thinking it's futile. Otherwise you will surely just run into the same brick wall. Even I would.

And how would roos create the same problem in a controlled environment like a zoo?

I'm 100% positive that there's a better solution, if I wasn't at work I would myself think of one.

I've shot many roo's over the years. Imagine a sheep, that can move up to 80kmh! They can cover a lot of ground, and forget farmers fencing, they decimate one paddock, they just jump over and start on the next one.

Sure they are cute and all that, but when they get to large numbers, they can leave entire areas barren. Imagine super fast sheep. Not only that, they have pretty fierce claws, made mostly for digging. So unlike sheep who attack the top level grass and shrubs, roo's dig and absolutely destroy root systems, leaving barren paddocks and land.

Its a shame it comes to this, often its the farmers who have to sneek out and shoot them illegally to try and keep the numbers down. Of coarse they risk serious fines and jail, so the majority of them leave them be. Pretty soon the Govt wakes up and we have this situation where 6000 of them are put down.

Another problem not mentioned is the drought we are currently having. The worst drought in the nations history. This is causing roo's to come in closer to the cities, closer to farming land on the outskirts. Food production has to be protected.

And forget rounding up 6000 roo's. You'd have a hard enough time rounding up 10, let alone a 100 of them.

For what its worth, as I noted in my other post this isn't a new problem. It seems to be more one that has gotten worse due to inaction.

However, back in '08 it appears several AU kangaroo experts (professors, etc) weighed in with their views on the problem and the possible alternatives.

Australian Science Media Center - Kangaroo Cull

You can scroll down through the article linked above to get their views.

Here is an excerpt of one Dr's thoughts..

Dr Greg Baxter is a Senior lecturer in Natural and Rural Systems Management at the University of Queensland.

“A cull – that is reducing the density of kangaroo’s on that land - seems to be the only rational way to proceed. It will be humane if done correctly. I have reservations about darting them then injecting them because darting them is much more likely to go wrong and cause injury and maim animals rather than a lethal shot from a trained marksman. We know that kangaroo’s can be humanly shot, for example the RSPCA has no welfare issues with the commercial kangaroo harvesting.

There are not any animal welfare issues with a cull but there are issues if we leave them, it is a long lingering death by starvation and will take weeks for them to die. This seems like a very painful and unpleasant way to die and they have the capacity to severely degrade the environment as they are wild animals trying to eke out a living.

The only other way to control the problem is to translocate them but to do that you must take them to somewhere that is suitable kangaroo habitat not already occupied by kangaroo’s – these places do not exist. If you put them somewhere where there already are kangaroo’s you either displace the kangaroos that are already there or the animals you moved end up displaced themselves and will again face a lingering and prolonged death. On top of this the translocation process is likely to be very traumatic. I think the option of some lethal reduction in numbers is the only way to go and it is not qualitatively different from the commercial kangaroo harvest which kills several million kangaroo’s a year.”

Keep in mind this is from last year. Point being - it would appear that this in not a knee jerk reaction and that some thought has been given to possible alternatives by various experts for some time.

here's an idea
dart them with a sleeping dart
and ship them to one of the zillions of unhabitated islands on earth

whatever happens while they are there, let nature take it's course

reply to post by ModernAcademia


That won't work either. Roo's are nothing more that really big RATS. nasty ones too. They are not the perfect animal to put on other places. Where are all those uninhabited places you speak of? Why would someone be so foolish as to put the very same problem somewhere else. Its you that don't get it. These animals are a pest. Always have been and always will be. They decimate any and all plant life they come in contact with when their numbers reach this plateau. It's only by chance that mother nature hasn't culled the herd on her own. Maybe this drought is the way she's working to do just that. Starving and destroying whats left of vegetation doesn't seem to be the smartest solution to the problem but culling the herd using the military is just one way to accomplish what must be done. To continue to ignore or try to export them to another area does nothing to fix the situation!

Zindo

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Sorry but what is it with Americans and ranting about royalty. Lots of you clearly still think that the monarchy still acts like it did in the middle ages. Dude wake up.

Anyway as for the subject this is to the OP. I have thought about this. I have spent quite a while thinking about it. And I still think this is the best course of action. Not only that but I am getting rather bored of you repeating yourself. Face it. The idea of rounding them all up is just illogical. There isn't anywhere to put them. It is the roos that are causing the need for the culling. Put them elsewhere and they will cause the same problem again. You can't just start shipping them off to other parts of the world. That IS a logistical nightmare. BTW yeh that was me who said it first and I stand by what I said.

-Cauch1