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Kangaroo Awareness Day Rally a Success
On Saturday, 25th
of October at noon at Belmore Park,
near Central Railway in
Sydney, almost a hundred people gathered to
mark the first Kangaroo Awareness Day.
Supported by the
World League, Animal Liberation and other groups, the meeting was
organised by activist Gail Browning. New pamphlets and t-shirts were
created and printed for distribution to raise awareness in the
community of the terrible plight of the kangaroo, our native icon,
who according to the Government’s own website have dropped in
numbers from 57 million to 25 million since 2001.
Compered
competently by freelance journalist Anna Warwick, there were some
excellent speeches including a strong and impassioned support of the
kangaroo by Lee Rhiannon, leader of the Greens in the Upper House in
the NSW Parliament.
Many people at
the meeting were unaware of the awful cruelty of the commercial
kangaroo industry – up to 15% of kangaroos not killed outright but
hopping aware to die slow painful deaths. In-pouch joeys are dragged
from their mother’s pouches and routinely bashed to death or
decapitated – the dependent at-foot joey just left to die from
starvation or predation.
Contrary to the
perceptions of most people kangaroos are not farmed but are
free-living marsupials and are shot usually at night and in the heat
and dust of the outback. Often for many hours their carcasses are
left hanging in the trucks before being placed in chillers. This
obviously falls far short of satisfactory health standards such as
exist in normal abattoirs.
Our national icon, our much loved Skippy is indeed deserving of
better treatment.
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