On the eve of his recent visit to Australia, American political satirist P.J. O'Rourke was quizzed about his views on various United States presidents. Responding to questions by ABC 7.30 Report host Kerry O'Brien, the acerbic, self-confessed ''Republican party reptile'' dismissed Jimmy Carter as a ''doofus'' and Bill Clinton as a ''carny barker'' but reserved his strongest criticism for George W. Bush.
''I'll tell you the thing that made me mad at Bush it wasn't so much the policy mistakes, and there were plenty of them. He didn't feel that he had to explain himself to the American public. Now, damn it, it's a democracy.''
O'Rourke argued the job of the US president - or any politician, for that matter - is ''to talk to the public'' and explain policy. But Bush ''didn't feel obligated to talk he said, 'I'm in charge, I'm running things, you guys just go the mall, OK?'''
There's more than a hint of a ''go to to the mall'' attitude in the overall tenor of arguments advanced in the ACT Government's draft kangaroo management plan.
Barely 30 pages into this 200-plus page document, we learn it won't ''contain detailed prescriptions or operational procedures regarding proposed courses of action for particular areas''. Nor will it contain details of ''techniques, methods, procedures, protocols, standard operating procedures and codes of practice for field operations'' because these are ''generally well-established''.
Or, to paraphrase an old American folk song, ''shoo, shoo, skip to the mall, you voters''.
The folk who live in Canberra need this kind of detailed information to establish how a kangaroo management plan will translate to their neighbourhood.
People must be able to make an informed choice about how they and their kids want to live with urban wildlife. It may make for queasy reading, but they also need to know exactly how a cull will be conducted in their suburb seasonal frequency, cull duration, methods used, carcass collection and disposal and, most importantly, know they can still lodge an objection to a proposed cull and receive a fair hearing. Yes, damn it, it's a democracy.
One of Australia's leading kangaroo ecologists, University of NSW biologist Dr David Croft argues little consideration is given to the social cost of wildlife culls. They can polarise communities and leave people from both sides of the argument feeling socially isolated, politically disenfranchised and deeply depressed.
Those opposing kangaroo culls are often pilloried as extremists, motivated by a misinformed, maudlin view of animal welfare and wildlife conservation.
But those opposing last year's cull at the Belconnen naval site included senior public servants, academics, scientists, local business owners, wildlife carers and tribal elders of the Gamilaroi people, for whom the kangaroo is a spiritual totem. That's hardly an inarticulate, uninformed rabble.
The cumulative impacts of climate change, emerging diseases, habitat loss and urban sprawl are already taking a high toll on eastern Australia's kangaroos. Does it make sense for the ACT to develop a management policy in isolation from NSW? Don't we need a landscape-scale national strategy, and shouldn't this be the business of the Council of Australian Governments? We should also give a fairer hearing to the Gamilaroi people, who have repeatedly raised concerns about rapid declines in kangaroo numbers across the region. A ''kangaroos on country'' conservation program, organised and staffed by Aboriginal people, would allow meaningful and long overdue participation in one of the nation's key environmental issues.
Australia currently has no reliable, independent data on kangaroo numbers. An independent scientific assessment, prepared for the Howard government's 2006 State of the Environment Report, questioned the ecological sustainability of kangaroo harvesting. It found there was no data to back claims that harvesting was sustainable and no reliable data on kangaroo populations or distribution. As The Canberra Times reported last year, this independent report was changed, some months after publication and after pressure from within government departments to state commercial harvesting was sustainable and based on years of ''robust data''.
Historians estimate up to 50million bison roamed North America's great prairies for more than 10,000 years before European settlement. In 1806, explorer Meriwether Lewis wrote of a ''moving multitude, which darkened the whole plain''. Within less than a century, the great herds were decimated by railroad expansion, cattle ranching, hunting tours, a market for bison pelts and a US army policy of ''free bullets for bison''. By the end of the century, zoologist William Hornaday estimated there were just over 1000 bison left, and most were in zoos. Bringing bison back to America's prairies is now a complex, costly conservation project. And, the niche role these big beasts play in bringing back ''a whole bag of biodiversity'' to tallgrass prairies is only now being understood.
There are obvious parallels with Australia's careless treatment and ecological ignorance of its macropods. Croft raised concerns about the genetic impacts of kangaroo harvesting more than a decade ago. The late Dr Alan Newsome warned of a link between declining kangaroo fertility and climate change, with rising temperatures and lack of shade rendering males sterile. The balance could tip toward species vulnerability quite quickly. Emerging diseases among kangaroos in eastern Australia continue to mystify scientists epidemics of blindness, deformities, lameness, fatal gastric bloating, massive infestations of internal parasites and high accumulations of herbicides and pesticides in tissue and tail fat.
If we're serious about kangaroo management as a nation, let's have a four-day national conference in Queanbeyan, Braidwood or Yass so we get a cross-border perspective and the ear of federal pollies. Let's put all issues on the table and give everyone a fair hearing. Let's look at the social cost of culls, argue ethics, invite Aboriginal people to share knowledge and welcome wildlife carers as compassionate people who make a valuable contribution.
This is a national issue that's too big and too important for sectional interests to sway debate. We all have a right to choose how we'll live with nature, and packing us off to the mall isn't an option.
Rosslyn Beeby is science and environment reporter
Email a friend