Nillumbik’s Kangaroos in the Firing Line

The very first thing I did when I bought my eight acres of bushland in St Andrews in 1989 was to register it as a ‘Land for Wildlife’ property. For one of the main reasons that attracted me to this area was its wonderful native wildlife and this is still a large part of why I choose to stay. Frankly, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

I count myself lucky when I see kangaroos sleeping in the sun on my north-facing hillside, or glimpse a shy wallaby dashing away through the bush. In the morning, sometimes, the scat left on top of a rock tells me that a wombat has passed through overnight. I confess that there have been periods of my life when I have taken these common occurrences for granted; however, the long COVID lockdowns reminded me to appreciate what I have locally. So these days I value each encounter and am very aware what a special place Nillumbik is, on account of its native wildlife and its rich biodiversity. Those of us lucky enough to live here are the envy of Nillumbik’s many visitors.

I am therefore completely appalled that over 65,000 kangaroos have been targeted to be killed in Nillumbik and other areas within Victoria’s Central Region. Although all native wildlife (including kangaroos) is protected under Victoria’s Wildlife Act 1975, a State Government program called the “Kangaroo Harvesting Program” (KHP) overrides this protection.

Is the Kangaroo Harvesting Program being implemented for environmental reasons? For health and welfare issues related to kangaroos? No, and no. This program is administered by Victoria’s Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR). According to this department, the “KHP helps landholders reduce issues caused by kangaroos on-farm, it makes use of the carcasses and provides an income for the trained harvesters.” Harvesting quotas for each region have been set by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA). The program sits within Gayle Tierney’s portfolio as the Minister for Agriculture of Victoria.

So this is not an environmental program. Instead, it has established a brand new Victorian agricultural industry, set up to kill kangaroos for money. This is purely a commercial venture. Under the KHP, kangaroos – our national icon – are “harvested” in order to be turned into pet food for financial gain. In addition, the KHP is recognised as a “Developmental Wildlife Trade Operation” which allows “products” obtained through the program to be exported internationally. I have little doubt that this business is a lucrative one, with an excellent profit margin due to its low overheads.

Shooters under KHP naturally spruik for business. One operator believed that he had stumbled across a veritable gold mine when he knocked on the door of one of St Andrews wildlife shelters. Needless to say, no business was forthcoming from that door knock!

But this highlights the core difference between the KHP and another State Government program, called the “Authority To Control Wildlife” (ATCW). For in the latter program, it’s property owners themselves who seek action if they have a problem with native wildlife. Almost always, these are farmers whose agricultural livelihoods are threatened. They are the ones who apply for a permit to cull, and through this permit system they are required to supply legitimate grounds as to why they need to kill wildlife. Under the ATCW, the motivation for killing kangaroos is very different to that of the KHP. The ATCW has been operating for decades in Victoria and continues in addition to the KHP. It has a separate kill quota of almost 17,000 kangaroos for the Central region, which is deemed appropriate by DEECA to protect the interests and needs of farmers.

I believe that the ATCW permit system can still play a role in Nillumbik, but the KHP has absolutely no place here. For in Nillumbik, we have no broadacre farming. While there are pockets of agriculture, it is very limited in scale and the few farmers we do have in our community, could continue to manage localised kangaroo populations through the ATCW, if there was no KHP.

Nillumbik is renowned as the Green Wedge Shire. I suspect that we have more private land under environmental covenants and more public environmental reserves and parks, than we have farms. My small acreage of bushland is common within Nillumbik, with many similar small blocks in close proximity to Kinglake National Park and the Yarra River. Overwhelmingly, Nillumbik’s rural and semi-rural areas are lifestyle/recreational properties which do not provide an income, with grazing paddocks occupied predominantly by horses. Therefore, for the vast majority of people who live in Nillumbik, kangaroos do not present a problem. Instead they are highly regarded as part of the natural environment. Native wildlife is generally seen as a valuable asset to the area – which needs to be protected.

An agricultural business that incentivises killing precious native wildlife as a commercial enterprise under the KHP is completely inappropriate for Nillumbik’s Green Wedge.

However, Nillumbik does have one large problem. It’s not kangaroos; it’s deer. As an introduced species, their numbers are increasing rapidly and the destruction they are causing to bushland, pasture and fencing is immense. While some control is happening, it is on a very small scale and often on quite an ad hoc basis. So why the hell have kangaroos been targeted in such large numbers by the State Government, and not deer? Again, the answer has nothing to do with the environment, but again is related to money. Kangaroos are more profitable because they are easier to find and shoot, whereas deer are extremely evasive, taking flight at any sighting of a would-be shooter. It is disappointing that easy commercial success wins out over our natural environment.

Sometimes I hear someone suggest that there may be too many kangaroos in Nillumbik. While some data has been extrapolated from aerial counts across Victoria to support the kangaroo industry, these statistics have been widely contested by various environment groups who have conducted their own on-the-ground surveys. Generally, discussion about numbers seems to rely on local anecdotal evidence. When someone tells me that they saw a large mob of kangaroos, which they think demonstrates that population numbers have ‘exploded’, I liken this is to somebody extrapolating Melbourne’s human population number by looking at numbers congregating at the MCG during football season and averaging this density throughout the suburbs! We all know that kangaroos move around a lot, congregating and continually splitting off into smaller mobs. Certainly, new large-scale subdivisions in bordering municipalities such as Whittlesea would be pushing kangaroos into new territories and affecting our population numbers. To categorically determine that there are “too many” kangaroos in Nillumbik, I believe that we would need to do two things: a simultaneous count by citizen scientists across the whole area to correctly ascertain numbers, as well as a comprehensive discussion and analysis that determines the maximum population of kangaroos appropriate specifically for Nillumbik.

No discussion about the KHP is complete, I’m afraid, without mention of its detail. I will deliberately be brief. The program specifies that adult kangaroos are to be humanely killed by a single shot to the head, and joeys (deemed too young to survive alone) are to be killed by a blunt force to the head. I wish that I could say that this always happens, and that all deaths are instant . . . but this is not the case. I selfishly wish that I could unsee photos which have been sent to me of maggot-infested kangaroos, shot elsewhere in the body, and which are still alive weeks later. I deliberately do not include these photos in this article, as they are way too distressing. But for the locals who have come across an injured, suffering kangaroo, this is the gruesome, horrific reality of the “Kangaroo Harvesting Program”. I am enormously grateful to all our local wildlife volunteers who then have to deal with the aftermath, and failures, of this commercial enterprise.

I worry about the future of the three kangaroos which are regular visitors to my property. When I walk down my long driveway, I wave at them. They don’t bother to get up, for they recognise me as a regular visitor too. They are not ‘my’ kangaroos but I know them well. I can’t bear to think of them being killed. They are an important part of my environment, and our overall biodiversity. I want to protect them, and all Nillumbik’s kangaroos, and stop them from being part of a commercial slaughter program.

The KHP’s current plan finishes at the end of this year, and a new plan – with new quotas – is being drawn up now, to be implemented next year. The time is perfect to explain to Victoria’s Agriculture Minister that the “Kangaroo Harvesting Program” is inappropriate for Nillumbik, the Green Wedge Shire. I have begun a petition with Change.org which asks to exclude Nillumbik’s kangaroos from the Central Region’s kill quota.

I hope that many others will join with me by signing this petition. https://www.change.org/p/save-nillumbik-s-kangaroos-stop-the-slaughter

Together, we can protect Nillumbik’s kangaroos.