Kangaroo hunters fight
to keep ‘cute’ marsupials
from destroying farms
By Lindsay Young
Staff Reporter
SYDNEY, Australia - The tall, strong man
reached down in the dark and grabbed the tendons
of a lean kangaroo leg and slid in the hook.
He took the body, which by then had been
beheaded, and hung it on the rack in the back of the
ute - Aussie for pick-up truck. He signaled, and
that night’s extra hand shined the spotlight in a new
area. ,
A kangaroo went for it, and now he has his sec
ond kill of the night. He beheaded it, cut off the
paws and strung it up. He signaled once again to
continue.
This is a typical night on the job for a profes
sional shooter, someone hired to kill kangaroos in
Australia.
These are animals that most non-Australians
view as a show in a zoo - too cute to cause enough
harm to deserve death. But this Australian native
marsupial is one of the largest groups of pests
down under, some Australians say.
And while Nebraska farmers might not take such
drastic measures to get rid of gophers, raccoons, deer
^snakes, Australian farmers say they won’t hesitate
to do so. .
Kangaroos are viewed as both cute critters and -;
as pests by Australian farmers.
Winsome Mumford, a Sydney resident, grew
up on a farm north of Dubbo, New South Wales,
and said she grew up seeing both sides. Dubbo is
five hours northwest of Sydney.
About a dozen kangaroos would come up to
the fences and feed regularly at die farm on which
she lived. As a young girl, she used to watch them
with awe, she said, but as she grew older she under
stood the problem these animals cause for farms.
The vision of the pest beat out the cute one, as
the “roo” - as it is commonly called in Australia -
competes with farmers’ sheep and cattle for food
and water, Mumford said.
Kangaroos also cause car accidents and dam
age fences. Road signs warning of kangaroos
crossing are as common as deer-crossing signs in
Nebraska.
John McDonald, who grew up on a farm in the
state of Victoria, said Australian farmers have no
worries when a dozen kangaroos hang around their
large farms, which are hundreds of acres.
McDonald said the kangaroos don’t cause
enough damage to make a difference in the produc
tion of the farm.
Kollath said the same about Nebraska farm
pests. Kollath’s family lives on a farm near Winside
in northeast Nebraska.
But when up to 500 kangaroos visit a farm,
problems arise, McDonald said.
Mumford said the kangaroos in the area where
she lived were more of a nuisance than a real prob
lem because only a dozen kangaroos visited regu
larly.
For McDonald, now 28, num
bers of kangaroos started to flue- J
tuate in his area when he was |
about 16.
He said it was rumored that 1
greenies, or environmentalists, !
brought kangaroos to Victoria, a
state in the southern tip of
Australia, to protect them from being
shot in the outback. The outback
takes up the majority of the land in
Australia and consists of little or no
vegetation.
Kangaroos move a lot on their
own, too, which makes them difficult to control,
Mumford said.
A study was done to determine the mobility of
a mob, or group, of kangaroos, Mumford said.
They were tagged in Coonabarabam, a town north
east of Dubbo.
They were found shot four days later near
Baraba, New South Wales. The kangaroos had
traveled 248 miles in four days, she said.
The kangaroos follow food and water,
Mumford said. During drought seasons, they gath
er where water is available, she said, and this is usu
ally in the southeastern part of Australia.
This mobility makes it difficult to deter the
kangaroos from property, Mumford said, because
die kangaroagrrlsiting the fa&nare not the same
every time. Poisoning kangaroos is not effective,
she said, because a large amount of poison would
have to be used.
Shooting is the most effective, Mumford said.
License to Kill
The method of killing kangaroos is policed.
“We don’t want every man and their dog going
out on a shooting spree,” Mumford said.
Therefore, if farmers want to shoot kangaroos
that are harming their properties, they must obtain
a license, she said. The requirements for a license
vary in each of the five Australian states.
However, all licenses restrict farmers from
killing too many kangaroos. Depending on the
amount of kangaroos in the area, a farmer is
allowed to kill only a certain number of them,
McDonald said.
After killing a kangaroo, the shooter is
required to tag it. Then, most of the time, the car
casses are taken to a manufacturer of products
ranging from leather to dog food, Mumford said.
The manufacturer is not allowed to accept the
carcass if it is not tagged, she said. If a wildlife offi
cial finds a carcass on a farmer’s property that is
not tagged, that farmer can be
fined.
As with most sys
tems, though, there are
loopholes, McDonald said,
father has never obtained a license to kill
kangaroos on his farm. Obtaining a permit was
painstaking, and can take months, he said. By that
time, the kangaroos’ damage is done.
Professional shooters also must get a license,
and
are limited in what they
can kill. They only hunt at
night, when kangaroos feed and do the
most damage. They use a spotlight to hunt
the kangaroos, but, McDonald said, it’s not a
tough job.
“Kangaroos are so stupid,” he said. “In a
spotlight, they just sit there.”
McDonald said because the animal hops
right into the spotlight, hunting kangaroos is
not challenging enough to be fun.
“You wouldn’t go out for the thrill of shoot
ing kangaroos. It’s just pointless,”
McDonald said.
MgQgflald and Mumford both have
experietlc£s they remember from their ’
days on the farm dealing with kanga
roos.
Mumford recalls the
time when she had invit
ed a friend from the
city to hunt kanga
roos with her
father and her
on the farm.
She said
her friend
thought
kangaroos
were cute,
and was
yt p s e t
about
them
being
killed.
So, as a
joke,
Mumford
rasHr w
liliiiiH kangaroo on
his farm. The animal
^F didn’t die immediately,
j^F stumbled away, and was
left to die slowly, he said,
^k After that, they made a rule to
B shoot them only in the head,
B he said.
Regardless of whether
■ it’s the farmer or profession
B al shooter doing the hunt
ing, experiences are simi
■M lar.
^k When professional
jJ'B shooters collect their
B victim, they continue
B to shoot others,
because even though
V a kangaroo is shot in
B^ front of its mob, the
B death doesn ’t deter oth
^k ers from jumping into
the spotlight,
Ik McDonald said.
And so the
gk shooters contin
ue to complete
B ^j^^F their mission
protecting
Australian farms
* from the wrath of an
abundant native pest
- the kangaroo.
asked
carcasses in the back of the ute.
McDonald recalled a time his cousin shot a
'^QjppF Aaron Steckelberg/DN
Captive, wild kangaroos hop to different tunes
By Lindsay Young
StaffReporter
SYDNEY, Australia - Just as with any ani
mal, a kangaroo’s environment and behavior in the
zoo differs from that of kangaroo’s environment in
the wild. This creates two views of the animal.
The first thing a visitor sees stepping into the
Taronga Zoo in Sydney is an Australian mam
mals sign. The first thing to visit - the kangaroos.
A visitor will see the kangaroos relaxing on
the light red dirt drinking out of bowls set near the
large rocks scattered for them.
These kangaroos are raised in the zoo. The
visitor will not see them jumping over the fence
or even inside the fence - there is no reason to.
Though less confined, a similar place visitors
can find kangaroos is the Koala Park, one of the
many wildlife parks in Australia.
There is not much reason for jumping here
either. Food is set out for the animals.
As the visitor will see, the kangaroo is quite
gentle, and a pat on the head won’t be an invita
tion to a boxing match.
There are no mobs of kangaroos here, as
most are raised in the park where they share space
with free-roaming koalas and caged emus, wom
bats and dingoes.
At the Blue Mountains National park, near
Sydney, the visitor will see no kangaroos until
dusk, Mien it’s time to feed.
These kangaroos aren’t the creatures one
wants to pet, but rather to observe, as these are
Mid - not as used to human hands as those in the
zoo and in the Koala Park.
During the winter months, May to August,
there is even less supple grass for kangaroos to
eat. Mob by mob, the kangaroos sift down into
one of the clearings where picnickers and
campers prevail. The kangaroos ignore them.
Kangaroos cover the area, sticking together,
going wherever grass is available.
In time the area will prove to be unsuitable for
the mob’s needs, and the kangaroos will move on.
These are the kangaroos that cause problems
on farms. Those kangaroos in the zoos are sub
dued because of their lifelong captivity.