The kangaroo is arguably Australia’s most iconic creature but in New South Wales, there are fears the species could be under pressure due to landholder culling and commercial harvesting. The industry is supposed to be tightly regulated, but the government department responsible for monitoring it has no idea how many kangaroos are killed each year […]
Tag: kangaroos
How Kangaroo Populations are Mistreated in Australia
What images come to mind when you think of kangaroos? Giant marsupials with teeny babies in hidden pouches happily hopping around Australia? Maybe you picture their massive thigh muscles that propel them into the air? Well, those visuals aren’t wrong, but they also aren’t the whole story. Kangaroos are considered pests in Australia. They are […]
Fancy hunting a kangaroo? Or a zebra? In Texas, you can pay to play
In the rolling expanse of rural west Texas, a southern white rhinoceros named Killian has learned to come when he’s called. Killian stands there like a big fat puppy, hoping someone will dare to pet him. He and his rhino companion, Sebastian, like rubdowns far better than treats. We are standing on Ox Ranch, a […]
‘Dingoes were here first’: the landowners who say letting ‘wild dogs’ live pays dividends
By their own admission, John Knight and Caroline Thomas are blow-ins to the cattle country in South Australia’s far north. An Adelaide cardiac surgeon and a clinical researcher respectively, they bought Evelyn Downs, a cattle station near the Painted Desert about 150km north of Coober Pedy, in 2006 and moved north a decade later. From […]
Debate over radical plan to farm kangaroos in Australia – Should it be legalized?
Kangaroos would be farmed across Australia under a radical new plan advocates say would create income for landholders and better animal welfare outcomes. While many farmers shoot macropods, like kangaroos and wallabies, to make way for livestock and crops, the proposal would see pastoralists paid to retain and “manage” them. In an upcoming paper, Professor George […]
Tasmanian devils wipe out thousands of penguins on tiny Australian island
An attempt to save the Tasmanian devil by shipping an “insurance population” to a tiny Australian island has come at a “catastrophic” cost to the birdlife there, including the complete elimination of little penguins, according to BirdLife Tasmania. Maria Island, a 116-square-kilometre island east of Tasmania, was home to 3,000 breeding pairs of little penguins […]
Family of beloved kangaroos hopping around a golf course is saved from being culled after 80 angry residents stood in front of armed hunters paid to shoot them
Beloved kangaroos hopping around a golf course have been saved from being shot dead after members stood between the animals and armed hunters. Heritage Golf and Country Club in Melbourne’s north-east advised neighbours earlier this week that it was in their ‘best interests not to be out after dark’ as it was going to shoot […]
How kangaroos could be jeopardising conservation efforts across Australia
The experimental fencing had gone up to keep the rabbits out, but the ground inside the conservation area at Yathong in central New South Wales had still been nibbled and munched bare. “It was completely denuded,” says Prof Mike Letnic. “It was like a moonscape.” The culprit? Australia’s most ubiquitous marsupial: the kangaroo. “There’s this perception […]