Kangaroo Overpopulation

The kangaroo, the national animal of the land down under, is an animal that would have bewildered even the most experienced explorer when it was first found. Many readers outside of Australia would be surprised to find out that they are threatening people and livestock due to their overpopulation. With about 2 kangaroos per person in the country, they compete for resources with farmers, violently venture into urban areas, and pose as a threat to the ecosystem. Kangaroos are my favorite animal even though I've never seen them just because of the way they look, and the fact that they outnumber people makes them even more fascinating. Some argue that we have to get rid of them and see them as pests, while others see them as an icon of the country and an important part of the ecosystem. Anytime I think of the proportion, I always picture a kangaroo revolution, a roovolution, where they suddenly get super smart and take over the country but I digress. I think I just want to find a solution to this issue and I think the place I need to start is by answering there questions:

Why are there so many kangaroos?

How are people affected by the kangaroos?

What is the best course of action that benefits both parties

In an article by the Smithsonian Institution, the author talks about the controversies of culling kangaroos from the wild. It further goes onto explain how the kangaroo population has increased so rapidly over the last couple of years. A period of wet conditions throughout the country has allowed vegetation to thrive and caused a boom of new wildlife. In addition to this, human eradication of predators such as dingos and the thylacine, a marsupial dog, means that kangaroo populations are not kept in check by nature. The author raises a point to encourage the consumption of kangaroos to protect the ecosystem and suggests the green benefits over eating farmed red meat.

This source has helped me to understand how the population of kangaroos has exploded over the past decade. I honestly did not know what caused the kangaroo baby boom and would have thought that human expansion was driving their numbers down. I now have a new research point of the dingo and rabbit fences and how they affect the kangaroo populations. I have also learned more about the kangaroo industry that sells k-leather and meat.

The Australian Capital Territory issued a press release that talks about methods currently being used to control the population of kangaroos. The reason to be careful of kangaroo overpopulation has always been in fear of competition with livestock for grazing lands and that still stands to this day. In addition to grazing lands, they also compete for water and damage farm property. Currently, culling by shooting is the most popular and safest method but other methods such as sterilization and environmental modification have been used.

I learned more into what is being done about the kangaroo problem from this website and thought it would be a very slow process to individually shoot kangaroos as a means to control them. Another thing that I learned is that only males are culled in order to not separate mothers from their joeys. After the killed roo is logged, it is sent to a processing facility to be used for meat and the leather sold.

The Australian Veterinary Association goes into detail as to why and how animals should be culled. It contains many similarities with the ACT webpage including suggesting shooting as the most humane way to cull animals. This article is the first to mention animal welfare in that when there is a sustainable population, the kangaroo also benefits from the increased access to resources.

This information is useful to me because it is an animal work's perspective on the situation. They feel as if the numbers have passed the tipping point and are now harmful to both people and themselves. This is useful to me as now I have two different perspectives, one from the farmers affected and one from the veterinarians who often have to care for improperly culled animals.

Written by George R Wilson, a teacher at the Australian National University, it calls for an increase in professional animal control. When done incorrectly by inexperienced hunters, high standards are lost, animal welfare is lower, and a high amount of waste is created. If the government were to intervene more and treat kangaroos as a commodity, more people would have an incentive to help solve the problem, saving farmers from having to come about a solution on their own.

This article is useful to me because it is from an academic in the field. He believes the government and private firms should employ more professionals to deal with the problem. One thing I learned is that each year, only about 20% of the quota is fulfilled, making existing efforts largely ineffective. He also brings up another idea of culling not just on a quota but based on proportion, which is something that I have surprisingly not come across yet. He suggests culling more in areas with higher rates of kangaroo intrusions.

In a National Geographic article, they interview opponents of the culling of roos. The argument is that the kangaroos have been here longer than humans so it's only natural that their population will fluctuate with crests and troughs. Another claim is that the counting method the government used, counting the number in one area and extrapolating it to other areas, is inaccurate. They argue, the surveyors count the areas with the most animals and assume that number holds true for everywhere else but this claim is highly disputed.

This article is important because it gives an opposing view as to what to do about the problem of kangaroos. The aboriginal population is somewhere I did not think to look for a solution but I bet they will have lots of knowledge on the matter. It does make sense that that surveyors would extrapolate the data to not have to count them all but making a claim of two kangaroos per person is very bold and I'm sure there was a lot of research put into that figure.

An article by the Sydney Morning Herald bashes the kangaroo industry for its non-regulated practices. Kangaroos to be culled have to be male and shot in the head. However, this is hard to do at night and accidents happen. It is hard to determine the gender of the roo at night and even harder to accurately hit them. This leads to mother kangaroos being shot and as a result, the joey must also be killed or it will become orphaned and die of starvation.

The content from the SMH is useful because it shows the realities of culling kangaroos. On a farm, animals are more humanely killed in that they are often sedated and methodically slaughtered whereas in the wild, whatever goes, goes. The author also brings up the topic of the joeys as this is also another thing that the industry gets wrong. If it was in a controlled farm environment, this would not be an issue but around 800,000 joeys are killed as a result of accidental mother shootings.

An article by a Michigan State University researcher goes very much in-depth as to the correct legal procedures that commercial hunters must follow. It goes on to further bring up the sustainability of this industry. It states that kangaroo populations can increase four times in five years if it has access to adequate food and water. This last part where they have adequate access to resources is very important as the kangaroo population fluctuates very often and this record number is a crest in the population chart.

The information from that research is useful to me because it is another university published article. It gives insights as to what should be done and what is actually done. The sustainability part is also very useful to my research because it tells me that these points of a large population are normal. If this is the case, then it might be a waste of time to cull the kangaroos if their numbers will naturally decline in a few year's time. This still does not solve the problem of the kangaroos venturing into cities and endangering people and other animals.

Having heard the viewpoints from the mainstream media, the farmers, a professor, veterinarians, and animal conservationists, I now have a diverse understanding of the issue at hand. The cause of the overpopulation is attributed to a wetter than average past decade leading to more abundant vegetation, aided by the removal of predatory animals such as dingos from populated areas. Because of this, numbers have exploded and now compete for resources with farmers. The farmers want them gone but animal conservationists argue that this is natural and that culling the animals would disrupt nature.

This ties in part to our topic on population because now it is unsustainable to have these many kangaroos. Though the reproduction rate is low, their lifespans can range anywhere from 6-20 years. The conservationists could be right and in a decade's time, the numbers might drop back down. Another thing this relates to is the topic of food. When there are too many kangaroos, they act more violently amongst each other as they compete for feeding grounds and water but also now compete with livestock and humans for land.

After doing my research, I can confidently say that there is an abnormal amount of kangaroos living in the Australian wild. Though the numbers might be exaggerated, the total is no laughing matter and they are starting to venture into farms in search of food and water. If they don't find a farm, they find a road and see the bewildering sight of cars. Nine of ten animal collisions in the country are with kangaroos and usually end in the death of the animal and in some cases the driver and passenger. Historically, Australians just built fences to solve animal problems but I do not think those will work in this case. In regards to the western world, this brings up the question of animal welfare. Do we act in the interest of the animals and nature or mankind?

Sources

Panko, Ben. “To Save Australia's Ecosystem, Ecologists Say Eat Kangaroos.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 12 Sept. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/save-australias-ecosystem-ecologists-say-eat-kangaroos-180964846

ACT Government; PositionTitle=Manager; SectionName=Coordination and Revenue; Corporate=Environment and Planning Directorate. “Kangaroo Population Control Methods.” Environment, Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate, 18 July 2016, www.environment.act.gov.au/parks-conservation/plants-and-animals/urban-wildlife/kangaroos/kangaroo_population_control_methods. 

(AVA), Australian Veterinary Association. “Kangaroo and Wallaby Population Control.” Australian Veterinary Association, www.ava.com.au/policy-advocacy/policies/wild-animals/kangaroo-and-wallaby-population-control/. 

Authors: George R Wilson; Melanie Edwards, et al. “Professional Kangaroo Population Control Leads to Better Animal Welfare, Conservation Outcomes and Avoids Waste.” Australian Zoologist, Jan. 2019, search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.549100734824482. 

Berlin, Jeremy, and Photographs by Stefano Unterthiner. “Australia's Beloved Kangaroos Are Now Controversial Pests.” Magazine, 16 Jan. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/02/australia-kangaroo-beloved-symbol-becomes-pest/. 

Nurse, Eleanor. “Save Them or Kill Them: Australians Divided on Kangaroos.” The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Jan. 2015, www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/save-them-or-kill-them-australians-divided-on-kangaroos-20150126-12y47a.html. 

Sosnowski, Jordan. “Kangaroo Culling in Australia.” Animal Law Legal Center, Michigan State University, 2013, www.animallaw.info/intro/kangaroo-culling-australia. 

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