Snackaroo: Aussies are being encouraged to dine on the national icon
Credit: Wikimedia
SYDNEY: Skippy could be increasingly on the menu following a new report that expanding the kangaroo industry would significantly cut Australian greenhouse gases.
A paper in the journal Conservation Letters says reducing cattle and sheep populations and increasing the kangaroo numbers to 175 million by 2020 would lower greenhouse gas emissions by 16 megatonnes, or three per cent of Australia's total emissions.
Greenhouse impact
The paper's lead author – George Wilson of the University of New South Wales in Sydney – said a proposal to reduce sheep and cattle numbers on the rangelands by 30 per cent should be considered.
"Sheep and cattle constitute 11 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions," said Wilson who is involved with the university's Future of Australian Terrestrial Ecosystems (FATE) project. "Kangaroos, however, produce relatively little methane because they are not ruminants."
Mike Archer, UNSW dean of science and a long time advocate for sustainably farming Australian bush 'tucker', said that kangaroo can be promoted as a means of increasing health, wealth and happiness (see, Fry me kangaroo down, Cosmos Online).
"Eating more kangaroo has an incredible array of benefits, for our environment, for dietary health and as a tasty red meat," he said. "The soft padded feet of kangaroos are far kinder to the land than the hooves of sheep and cattle, which have caused untold damage and consequent land erosion."
Open to trying it
Kangaroos emit one-third as much methane as ruminant animals, such as cows or goats, which are responsible for 60 per cent of global methane emissions. Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that is significantly contributing to global warming.
In the past decade, the proportion of Australians eating kangaroo meat has risen from 51 to 58.5 per cent, according to a recent national survey conducted by the FATE project.
Around 15 per cent of Australians are regular consumers of kangaroo meat, eating it four or more times per year, while more than 50 per cent of people have tried it (33 per cent) or are open to trying it (21 per cent).
With the University of New South Wales
Kangaroo meat cannot replace livestock meat!
The kangaroo meat industry is not humane, clean or "green" and kangaroos cannot be farmed. Kangaroos are wildlife and cannot be herded, yarded or transported like introduced domestic sheep and cattle. Shooters kill the biggest and best kangaroos, the breeding stock, and this is not sustainable.
There is no way of accurately estimating the target species' quotas, and there is evidence that their overall numbers are in dangerous decline. Fencing would need to be more than 2 meters high, and these costs are prohibitive. Already speeding traffic is killing off so many!
Kangaroos "grow" their small amount of meat very slowly, unlike livestock. Joeys have long dependancies on their mothers. They have no commercial value and are just bashed, or die slowly.
There is no way they could be handled in abbatoirs, and it would mean using firearms. This is not how to treat these gentle animals! The meat cannot be guaranteed as free from parasites or bacteria. They are "game" meats and their disease-free status cannot be ensured.
It would be patriotic to value our wildlife for their intrinsic and tourist value, not for consumption. A post-carbon age should be free from livestock and our addiction to meat-dairy diets needs to be challenged.
Vivienne
mate youll get through it
its just a kangaroo
havent you ever run over one in the car?
imagine all those kangaroos going to waste just because they loook all festy and squashed, they actually taste quite nice when cooked on the BBQ outside on a hot winters night. just because hundreds of cars run over this waste of a perfectly good food supply doesn't mean that we shouldnt just vacuum wrap it and sell it in the supermarket.
They are not only Kangaroos
Are you a cold heartless moron!? Yes, yes you are. I never ranned over a kangaroo thats awful and from the way you sound, it sounds like you are the one obviously running them over and enjoying it!!! You maniac, even though the life of the kangaroo has been taking away from a careless driver it still deserves respect!! What are you a hillbilly! eating a kangaroo? I bet you on anything you eat humans too!!! what else?? Rats, june bugs what other thing you got to hide. Blah!!! you make me sick. How would you like it if the animal ran you over? Looked at you with hungry eyes? If you disagree (which I'm sure you will) I hope one day you will face the same!!! P.S. I dont care what you think!!!!Basterd!!!
kangaroos
i'm sorry. but you sound like a 10 year old child. your arguements make no sense and there is no science in them. i am assuming that you eat meat. then i ask what is the difference between one animals life and another. now don't get me wrong i am a big environmentalist but it is FACT that kangaroo's are better for the environment on the whole. they don't produce as nearly as much green house gas and are better for our natural environment. they don't compound the earth with there paws like cows do. also they have a better life than other life stock before they are killed. they are free to roam in their natural habitat.
i would love for the world to see how killing any animal is inhumane but the world isn't ready to face this harsh truth yet. but in the meantime kangaroo is better for the environment than the meat we are currently eating.
Kangaroo Meat: No solution to climate change
1. How would it be possible to build up kangaroo numbers to 175 million in view of the fact that we are in a drought and this has already wiped out 50-70% kangaroos nationwide? Is the Kangaroo Industry going to enforce a moratorium on killing kangaroos until they build up their numbers?
2. You would need to kill the entire kangaroo population 59 times a year to get the equivalent amount of meat that comes from cows and sheep. An adult kangaroo only produces maximum 3K human-grade meat compared to a 2yr old cow which produces 400lb flesh.
3. Kangaroos cannot be farmed - they cannot be penned, herded, transported, interfered with in any way. They are highly stressed animals who get diseases and myopathy from stress. The program to farm animals in any way will result in failure, as have emu farms and attempts to farm wildlife.
4. Kangaroo meat is loaded with bacteria and parasites. George Wilson is prepared to put his name to a product that could potentially kill people (toxomplasmosis) plus ecoli, salmonella, staph, strep etc.
5. Australia's reputation is being gravely damaged by the promotion of kangaroo meat internationally. Already we have the world's worst record of mammal extinctions of any country in the world having wiped out 30% of our wildlife in the last 200 years. At the rate we are going kangaroos could be extinct in as little as 10 years or less.
6. The cruelty to joeys (estimated between 300,000 to 1,000,000 every year) who die when their mother is killed is shameful. The in-pouch joeys bashed to death or stomped on, the out-of-pouch running off and drying of starvation, hypothermia, predation along with a broken heart when they go back to look for their mother and only find her tail, head, legs is just not acceptable.It has to stop. The mother-joey bond is extremely strong in kangaroos, how can we in all conscience be promoting more of this kind of suffering?
6. The late Steve Irwin heavily advised against kangaroo consumption. He said “It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife … I’m here to tell you it’s not right …. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products.” And he is right.
How do kangaroos feel when their families are destroyed and when they suffer the extreme pain of being shot and killed or dying of starvation etc? They have feelings and don't want to die, grieve terribly at the loss of their loved ones (as do all animals and humans).
These questions bear reflecting on. Our world is being systematically destroyed in the 6th Mass Extinction of all species. Kangaroo populations are plummeting across the nation as proven on government websites.
The solution to climate change is for people stop ALL meat and dairy consumption. Eat a plant-based diet, free up the grain being fed to livestock and feed the starving millions of people. Liberate half the groundwater currently being used in the creation of meat & dairy for other better uses. Get rid of wasteful, polluting livestock by 100% not just by 25% as Wilson is suggesting. That would truly help the planet more than anything right now. If we continue eating animals and their body fluids the planet won't stand a chance with 7 billion people all wanting to eat animal products.
It's time to change.
Winds of change
It _is_ time for change, and I agree with much of what you say. We really need radical change really soon - however a 25% cut in farming of ruminants IS radical. Anyone who stands and bellows for something as over-the-top as a sudden 100% drop in farming of sheep/cattle for human consumption needs to up the lithium dose.
We only have one planet, we are trashing it frighteningly, but the solutions are not going to come from people acting like they are on another planet.
A vegetarian society would solve many global problems, but so long as there are humans here there will be some animals exploited. Sorry, it's as simple as that. If we can solve some problems (kinda insurmountable as they seem), and farm macropods in a humane and hygienic fashion, it will be better for the farmed land and better for the global climate.
However, any solutions to the difficulty of farming kangaroos will come, to a fair degree, from selective breeding - breeding for calmer roos, for example. So don't let anyone who proposes this scheme suggest it will help save the species'. It won't - it will just create a domestic variant. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that it's not a conservation sort of thing.
LOOK AT THAT PHOTO
The kangaroos got its head somewhere.
pedo
Kangaroos
Personally i think thast kangaroos were made to be eaten as they are much healthier than chicken even if they taste similer