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Russians Ban Kangaroo Meat
Until the mid
year Russia had been the main market for
kangaroo meat, buying 70% of all export meat. However in July, tests
carried out in
Russia
on the meat revealed unacceptably high levels of E.coli
contamination. This finding led to the Russian decision to cease
buying any more kangaroo meat from
Australia.
Mark Pearson from
Animal Liberation NSW had previously visited
Russia
to acquaint the Russians first hand with the inherent cruelty and
the lack of proper hygiene standards of the kangaroo industry.
Margaret Bowman,
our Russian speaking secretary, also assisted this campaign by
personally delivering a letter on the kangaroo industry to the
office of Russia’s
main newspaper, Pravda. The letter was published in full.
Unfortunately
Queensland
premier Anna Bligh has recently visited
Russia
to attempt to renegotiate a deal with the Russian meat buyers who
plan to visit
Queensland and possibly New South Wales early in 2010. The largest
meat factory is in Charleville in
Queensland
and Anna Bligh has made much of the loss of jobs in Charleville. But
in actual fact the kangaroo industry in
Australia
is a very small industry worth about $270 million at most to the
country. Our tourism industry is worth approximately $80 billion
annually and we believe there is far more money to be made for Australia out of successfully
promoting the kangaroo as a tourist icon.
Of course we are
planning to lobby the Russians when they visit
Australia.
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