More Money Than Sense

Juliet Samuel | August 6, 2007

In the civilized world’s latest sordid military venture, the Australian military has revealed plans to forcibly sterilize and displace thousands of innocent kangaroos. The army originally planned to just shoot the beasts, whose grazing has eroded military bases and endangered other animals, until public uproar prompted a rethink. The new thinking: the best use of taxpayer resources would be to simply move the animals.

The kangaroos would be herded into a padded pen and sedated, then shot with a paintball gun to mark them as ready for transport. They would be released in a fenced area covered with shadecloth, the report by the Wildcare protection group for the Defence Department said.

At A$3,600 a head, the cost of moving each animal is more than a standard economy class return air ticket from Sydney to London on Qantas, the national carrier which features a kangaroo on its tail.

Comments

|8.6.07 @ 3:08PM|#

Why do you need a paintball gun to mark a sedated animal?

SIV|8.6.07 @ 3:08PM|#

Our civilization is really in decline.
Animal rights wackos are winning big time.

SIV|8.6.07 @ 3:10PM|#

Why do you need a paintball gun to mark a sedated animal?

Mark the ones that have completed the progressive eugenics program.

SIV|8.6.07 @ 3:14PM|#

Why do you need a paintball gun to mark a sedated animal?

I should have RTFA.
No the paintball makes no sense unless it is a consolation shot for the guys who didn't get bullets or tranquilizer darts.

The sterilized 'roos go somewheres else.

|8.6.07 @ 3:18PM|#

...the beasts, whose grazing has eroded military bases

No wonder we're loosing in Iraq! Our only ally is making their military bases out of Kangaroo Food!

|8.6.07 @ 3:19PM|#

correction: losing

|8.6.07 @ 3:25PM|#

Our only ally...

They're not our only ally. We've got Poland. Ah, we've got Afrika Bambaata and the Zulu Nation. Japan is sending Playstations.

Coalition of the Willing, bitches.

|8.6.07 @ 3:25PM|#

Is Kangaroo hunting legal there? They could just encourage that instead of paying all this money.

I don't know how kangaroo meat would taste but there has to be some use for them.

|8.6.07 @ 3:26PM|#

Japan is sending Playstations.

They certainly have enough surplus Playstation 3's from lack of sales to do just that!

thoreau|8.6.07 @ 3:29PM|#

de stijl-

I'm focused on Mars, bitches!

Episiarch|8.6.07 @ 3:29PM|#

A bullet costs $.20, but no, they have to save some non-endangered kangaroos at $3600 a pop. Can I get into the roo-relocation business?

Bee|8.6.07 @ 3:34PM|#

They could introduce some kangaroo predators. Maybe Austra-lions.

lunchstealer|8.6.07 @ 3:34PM|#

It's the kangaroos' fault for not being tastier. Why can't they be more like lambs?

SIV|8.6.07 @ 3:41PM|#

I don't know how kangaroo meat would taste but there has to be some use for them.

I bet they would taste pretty good in North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Darfur

lunchstealer|8.6.07 @ 3:50PM|#

In fairness to Darfur, their problem is not one of limited food, so much as not shooting each other for no reason.

SIV|8.6.07 @ 4:04PM|#

luchstealer,

a quick perusal on the Darfur conflict showed starvation as a cause of death along with disease and outright killing. Kangaroo meat couldn't hurt the situation even if it ends up unused like truckloads of ice and house trailers after a hurricane.

|8.6.07 @ 4:07PM|#

Is Kangaroo hunting legal there? They could just encourage that instead of paying all this money.

Yes, I believe kangaroo hunting is legal but highly controlled, but this is on government property. And any cull would be done by government employees not licensed private hunters.

This is partly a cultural divide issue. The vast majority of Australians now live in a few big cities and a loud vocal animal rights groups pretty much dominate discourse on policy when it comes to public lands.

People who live in the country tend to have no problem with killing nuisance or delicious animals but they are outvoted by city-dwellers.

The same thing happened on an island national park where koala bears were overbreeding and stripping the leaves of gum trees quicker than they could grow. Instead of a cull as recommended by park managers they tried chemical contraceptives instead.

Of course, koala bears are just too cute to shoot aren't they?

I don't know how kangaroo meat would taste but there has to be some use for them.

Actually kangaroo meat is very tasty. Some consider it delicious.

|8.6.07 @ 4:10PM|#

I still don't understand how Kangaroo grazing can erode military bases?

Can anyone enlighten this poor soul?

|8.6.07 @ 4:12PM|#

People starve in Darfur because when they go to get food from the ground (i.e, farming) they get shot. That's still not a lack of food.

Gahan|8.6.07 @ 4:35PM|#

This is really a non-problem. Should a few 'roos happen to get shot accidentally while trespassing on a military base, the government can just attribute it to poor marksmanship. Problem solved.

Doc|8.6.07 @ 4:51PM|#

We feed the cats roo meat. It's sold in the animal food section at the grocery stores. 'roo loin is quite tasty for humans though.

Christ, their carcases line the streets in the bush. You ain't seen anything until you've seen a roo explode on the bull bars of a road train.

russell|8.6.07 @ 5:14PM|#

"Thousands" @ $3,600 a head?

If $29,995.00 gets your cat cloned in Korea, you'd think three mil and change would bring back the marsupial lion.

|8.6.07 @ 5:21PM|#

I still don't understand how Kangaroo grazing can erode military bases?

They are overgrazing and stripping the grass. It is probably the wind that is doing the actual erosion.

One of the problems might be that Australia is going through a drought that is more severe than usual. I had a guest from Australia recently and he laughed out loud when he heard that Florida was going through a drought.

"Come to my place," says he, "I'll show ya a bloody drought."

lunchstealer|8.6.07 @ 5:44PM|#

Seriously, though. If the Australian army can't defend itself against some kangaroos, how are they hoping to defeat Iraqi insurgents, or all those annoying American college kids on 'walkabout'?

|8.6.07 @ 5:45PM|#

Is Kangaroo hunting legal there?

I'm sure hunting is, but gun ownership, not so much.

|8.6.07 @ 5:49PM|#

Who is John Galt Juliet Samuel?

|8.6.07 @ 6:07PM|#

lunchstealer

I realize that your probably kidding, but the article is pretty clear that there are people who are ready, willing and able to kill the 'roos. They are being prevented from doing that by politicos who are overly sensitive to cries of loud animal rights activists.

mediageek

Hunting rifles are still common in rural areas. Getting a license is a pain in the arse from what I hear but people still have them. Australians have never been great handgun owners.

Again this is largely a cultural thing. Politics in Oz is now dominated by city dwellers who think guns are icky and that killing cute animals is cruel.

Salvius|8.6.07 @ 6:25PM|#

Obviously, they're just afraid to get too aggressive with the 'roos, because they've all trained on Australian military simulations where the kangaroos shoot back.

LarryA|8.6.07 @ 10:33PM|#

A bullet costs $.20, but no, they have to save some non-endangered kangaroos at $3600 a pop.

Another problem with relocation is, Where?

We have the same folks here, only they want to relocate whitetail deer. Turns out any habitat where whitetail deer can survive is already full of them.

Relocate thousands of roos, and either the ones being moved or the ones they crowd out will starve. Or in a bad year, both.

wayaway|8.6.07 @ 11:20PM|#

I live in Canberra and I am heartily sick of the freaks hysterically whining on this one. I'm all for reasoned argument, but I've heard a number of these people espousing their views on local radio and they are creepily stupid. I am not exaggerating when I say you can hear the 'awww they are just so cute' in their voice, which is pretty much the length and breadth of their argument (plus throwing in 'inhumane' and such buzzwords)...

They're not endangered, plenty are killed each year for human and animal consumption, and the man-made grazing fields (farms, other cleared land) have created so much food that in good times populations skyrocket. When the water goes away the land just can't carry them.

Putting arguments about restrictions aside, seeing as there is a quota why not just have animals causing ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS (gasp) as part of that quota???

I am not aware of ANY outrage coming from outside these tiny 'interest groups' but I stand to be corrected... oh wait, the media, of course.

Yes, it does irk me when credence is given to these clearly ridiculous views by government...

Speaking of this particular ridiculous government, John Stanhope, Chief Minister of our great Australian Capital Territory hosted a citizenship ceremony that a friend of mine was in. His speech consisted of his lengthy, graphic description of his shame at being an Australian due to our wholesale slaughter of Aboriginal people. My friend's husband took umbrage as to whether this was the correct forum for such a public rending of clothes (he actually yelled 'Correct Forum?' which was amusing) and was publicly set upon by leftist bully-boys/girls calling him racist. Hilarity ensued.

wayaway|8.6.07 @ 11:25PM|#

When I say above 'they are not endangered', unfortunately I am not talking about the activists... unless that whole Gaia-death thing is imminent, I guess.

|8.7.07 @ 1:10PM|#

Soylent Green is ... Kangaroos!!? No, wait... its Koalas! Tasty, tasty Koalas.

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