Hundreds of kangaroos were butchered at several sites during this year's annual ACT cull to make poison baits for foxes and feral dogs, and to generate skins passed on to the Ngunnawal community.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request by animal liberation groups revealed that the butchery process had been carried out "in secret" at the Ainslie/Majura, the Pinnacle, and Mulanggari nature reserves.
A total of 1041 kangaroos, just one shy of the 2023 cull target, were shot this year in mid-winter across four reserves in what the ACT government described as the "conservation cull component of the Eastern Grey kangaroo management program".
This is around 600 less than were shot during the 2022 winter cull after nearly two years of higher-than-average rainfall.
However, the irony is that the ACT claims on its website that the cull is undertaken in strict accordance with the national code for the humane shooting of kangaroos and wallabies "for non-commercial purposes", yet it obtains a quasi-commercial benefit because the carcasses are butchered for the government's annual baiting program.
Without the cull to supply the poison baits, the government would have to procure them commercially.
"ACT Environment Minister Rebecca Vassarotti's kangaroo management program enables the hunting of kangaroos and joeys, but we are appalled and outraged it also allows butchering them into over 3400 meat baits," Save the Kangaroos' spokesperson Jane Robinson said.
"The minister and government has kept this hidden, including at this year's [Assembly] committee hearings. It has only come to light because of the FOI documents.
The minister and government has kept this [information] hidden
- Save The Kangaroos' Jane Robinson
"They had already turned the bush capital into a slaughterhouse of Australia's most iconic animal. Now we discover they're willfully misleading Canberrans by concealing the late-night butchery and breaching their own ban on the commercial killing of kangaroos.
""The annual slaughter is cruel, unnecessary and pointless."
READ MORE:
The government would not admit to the quantity of baits butchered and processed during the cull, and said these would now be held in cold storage for future baiting programs.
"The wild dog and fox control program is ongoing with baiting primarily occurring in spring and autumn," the directorate said in a statement.
The "management program" also includes a separated program, still in its infancy, to administer an immuno-contraceptive vaccine to female kangaroos. Over 100 female kangaroos have been injected with GonaCon since 2022. Between April and August this year 59 were treated at Mulligans Flat and Farrer Ridge.
A commercial tannery had processed the animal skins in previous years but the government said that the Ngunnawal community had this year "put in place their own process for the preparation and tanning".
The ACT government says "managing grazing by kangaroos is just one element of a broader program of land management aimed at protecting our lowland grassy ecosystems".
