Skip to content or view screen version

LARGEST WILDLIFE MASSACRE ON THE PLANET

Alexandra Yurkiw-Producer | 01.09.2002 04:55

This year over 7 million kangaroos are set to be slaughtered by the Kangaroo Industry and farmers nationwide. This comes despite a major drought in Queensland where the highest quota of around 4 million is set.

This year over 7 million kangaroos are set to be slaughtered by the Kangaroo Industry and farmers nationwide. This comes despite a major drought in Queensland where the highest quota of around 4 million is set. This year over 7 million kangaroos are set to be slaughtered by the Kangaroo Industry and farmers nationwide. This comes despite a major drought in Queensland where the highest quota of around 4 million is set. Each year, millions of kangaroos are killed in what is widely regarded as the largest wildlife massacre on the planet. On Saturday 31st August, we¹ll be taking our kangaroo campaign to the high street with a new target - Adidas. Shockingly, the number one supporters of this barbaric trade are sports shoe manufacturers, who purchase the pelts and turn them into football boots. Adidas in particular is a major driving force behind the industry - encouraging the slaughter of millions of kangaroos all for the sake of a sports shoe! In July Viva! was leaked an email being circulated by John Kelly, spokesperson for the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia, in which he states "This (soccer boot) industry is vital to the kangaroo industry. Without it underpinning kangaroo skin prices the entire industry would be at risk. Adidas have received to date over 10,000 emails complaining about their use of kangaroo leather...and are obviously concerned about damage to their image." Mr Kelly could not have given us better evidence that our campaign is having an amazing effect on the kangaroo industry. They are running scared! Animal Liberation are participatingin a Natioanl Day of Action for the kangaroo on August 31st. Show your support for these 'protected' yet massively abused native animals: SATURDAY AUGUST 31ST 2002 10am - 1pm OUTSIDE THE MLC BUILDING, GEORGE STREET, BRISBANE. PLEASE PASS AN HOUR ON SATURDAY AUGUST 31st TO HELP US PRESSURE THIS COMPANY TO USE THE HUMANE ALTERNATIVE. IN PARTICULAR TARGETING ADIDAS, THE COMPANY THAT UNDERPINS THIS INDUSTRY FOR LEATHER FOR THEIR FOOTBALL BOOTS. WE WILL BE ASKING ADIDAS TO USE THE ALTERNATIVE FOR THEIR BOOTS - HIGH QUALITY, STRONG MICROFIBRE MATERIAL.

Alexandra Yurkiw-Producer

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Struth!!!!!!

01.09.2002 05:39

Gday Cobber,

Strike me pink them ozzies are a stubbie short of a slab.

I reckon that this story might could however be a bit of bulldust on the Tallangong track.

Oi Oi Oi

Digger


Kangaroos are like rabbits.... = vermin

01.09.2002 10:38

Kangaroos are an agricultural pest mate. Just like the errant rabbit population, occasional culls are neccessary to keep the buggers under control.

Now, this might come as a shock to you, but in general, and certainly farmers, Australians don't like kangaroos. They are vermin, a pest, something to be killed. Which is what we do - it's called culling and the Government lets a certain number of kangaroos be killed every year because they destroy crops and fences and generally are a nuisance

They are not cute. If you find yourselve anywhere near one, especially a large male in heat, the best course of action is to get as far away as quickly as possibly. The large males not only dent but right off cars (hence the big bars you may have seen on trucks) and can kill people if they feel the need to kick you somewhere vital to breathing/being alive eg chest.

mike
mail e-mail: mjpann@essex.ac.uk


Adicrass

01.09.2002 10:59

If you have purchased a new pair of Adidas Climacool trainers recently costing 80 quid, you would know they are 100% synthetic material and have more holes than shoe, and the soles are polystyrene, costing in total, about $2 to make. The surplus kangaroos (and swans, and deer) are being exterminated, because the Globalists don't want anything running around which people could est, when the planned World food crisis comes!

Joey


This is totally counterproductive

01.09.2002 12:09

Instead of using an organic free-range renewable resource (kangaroo leather), you want Adidas to use synthetic materials derived from crude oil via the evil chemical industry? That's plain stupid. If ozzie farmers view kanagaroos as vermin they'll shoot them regardless of the market for leather, possibly to extinction. Because they can sell the leather and meat the kangaroo is not just vermin: the kangaroo is valuable, and that will help to ensure that the species survives. By killing off the market for leather and meat all the "save the kangaroo" campaigners will actually achieve is to help push the kangaroo toward extinction.

And I'm sure the north American bison and the passenger pigeon would diasgree with the description of kangaroo hunting as "the greatest wildlife massacre on the planet".

Furry Dave
mail e-mail: furry1dave@yahoo.com


Wrong again, Kangoo-Chum !

01.09.2002 13:50

The largest wildlife massacre, by numbers AND weight, is the ongoing slaughter of literally billions of innocent insects being smashed to pulp against vehicle windscreens moving at high speed, particularly EVERY night, all over the world.

This disturbing and barbaric planetwide horror has been occuring with increasing intensity for at least the last 100 years, and makes the fate of a mere few million stinking rodents pale to insignificance by comparison.

Fuck your Kangoos and the lousy Boots they jumped in on, save the flies, man, the moths, the little honey-bees!!

Stop the Insecticide Terror
Jainist World League

Death to all Rodents, Long live the Insects


narrow minded

02.09.2002 19:25

hello ????????
how can you be so narrow minded??
why don't you learn the whole story before you post ridiculous posts like these ones above!
how can you believe the propaganda that the media, government and kangaroo murdering industry put out there?

for your information:


Myth - Kangaroos destroy wheat crops
A four year study by CSIRO(Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) found that 95 per cent of wheat crops are never visited by kangaroos. Yet farmers and the Australian government still refer to kangaroos as pests. “Pests is an emotive word. It conjures up visions of animals destroying crops. I can think of no situations where this is likely to be true for kangaroos.” Dr. Graham Arnold, CSIRO In fact, commercial killing takes place in the outback where crops are never grown.

Myth - Kangaroos compete for grazing
A six-year study by Dr Steven McLeod (NSW Agriculture) - the biggest ever undertaken - examined whether red kangaroos affected sheep farming. It found no competition for food between sheep and red kangaroos - even in drought conditions.

Myth - Killing kangaroos helps preserve them
The kangaroo massacre destroys the process of natural selection - the largest and fittest animals are always targeted. “This has the potential to cause the extinction of a number of species”. (Dr Ian Gunn, Animal Gene Storage Resource Centre of Australia.) Australia has the worst wildlife record in the world - six species of kangaroos extinct, four more extinct on the Australian mainland, 17 species endangered or vulnerable.

Myth - The killing is strictly controlled
No one monitors, let alone controls, the killing. Kangaroos are shot at night in the vast outback. Joeys at foot, still reliant on their mothers, are not even mentioned in the Code of Practice. “Shooters often have a thorough contempt for the law. They commit cruelty on a regular basis.” (Dr John Auty, veterinary scientist and former Chief Agronomist).

Myth - Kangaroos are killed to save the environment
Kangaroos have evolved with and are part of the Australian environment. Destruction comes from 160 million hard-hoofed sheep and cattle.

Myth - Kangaroos are in plague proportions
Kangaroos have never been a plague. They have been wiped out in many regions. In others, their numbers build up in order to withstand the regular droughts which wipe out half the population. Kill quotas for 2001 were 5.5 million - but this figure ignores joeys, road deaths, illegal and non-commercial kills. This annual death toll amounts to 10 million - a patently unsustainable figure.

Fact - Kangaroos are killed to earn foreign currency, which is why the meat and leather is promoted around the world. Having built an industry with political clout, self interest will ensure it carries on killing, whatever its impact on kangaroos.

sm


Narrow-minded? I think I'm being realistic.

03.09.2002 17:47

sm, you say that kangaroos aren't pests because "95 per cent of wheat crops are never visited by kangaroos". If I was the farmer who had kangaroos "visiting" 5% of my wheat crop I'd certainly think they are pests.

The "kangaroo murdering" industry's self-interest in exporting organic free-range meat (organic free-range is a good thing, right?) and leather means they have a self-interest in preserving the future of the kangaroo as a species. If the "save the kangaroo" campaigners destroy the market for meat and leather then kangaroos will continue to be shot, whether for sport or as pest control, but nobody will have any interest in preserving their future.

I do not want kangaroos to become extinct: only a fool would. A good way to ensure a species survives is to make sure that a wealthy industry has a stake in that species' survival. Sure; work to reform the methods of commercial killing and make more sensible quotas, but just trying to destroy the market is counterproductive.

Furry Dave
mail e-mail: furry1dave@yahoo.com