May 2016: 

The Australian Society for Kangaroos is calling on the Victorian Department of Environment, Land Water and Planning to suspend three wildlife destruction permits issued to Parks Victoria to kill more than 10,000 Red kangaroos and 10,000 Western Grey Kangaroos in National Parks in the Victoria’s north amid concerns the permits could wipe out Victoria’s last remaining Red and Western Grey Kangaroos.

In a letter to the Department Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Australian Society for Kangaroos has urged Minister Neville to consider the serious conservation threat to Red and Western Grey Kangaroos in Victoria as a result of these government permits authorising the slaughter of tens of thousands of kangaroos in the state’s national parks. In their letter ASK explained to the minister that the only scientific counts of Red Kangaroos in Victoria were conducted by government scientists in the 1980s, which showed Red Kangaroos at critical densities of just 0.15 kangaroos per square/km, and only 440 Red Kangaroos remaining in the state’s national parks.

Nikki Sutterby said in a statement today that:
“Unless the Minister has evidence of a significant population boom of Red and Western Grey Kangaroos in Victoria since the 1980s, the survival of these unique kangaroo species in Victoria is under serious threat as a result of these permits”.

Nikki Sutterby, President of Australian Society for Kangaroos reminded Minister Neville in their letter that:

“Since 2013 the number of Red Kangaroos killed under permit in Victoria has skyrocketed with a 1000% increase in the number killed from the 2010-2013 period, and with 10,680 Red Kangaroos authorised to be killed by the current Labor government in National Parks in 2016 alone”.

ASK urged Minister Neville to:
“Immediately provide recent scientific kangaroo population counts in Victoria to support your decision to kill 10,700 Red Kangaroos and 10,455 Western Grey Kangaroos in National Parks in 2016, and more than 200,000 Eastern Grey Kangaroos in Victoria since 2015, to satisfy the requirements of the Wildlife Act that these permits will not be ‘deleterious to the welfare or conservation of any wildlife or taxon of wildlife’, and to reassure the public that these permits will not cause the extinction of Victoria’s iconic kangaroos?”.

ASK urgently requested the population data from Parks Victoria and Minister Neville last week, but it has not yet been provided.

Please see below for details of the entire email sent to the minister and our sincere concerns for the welfare and conservation of Victoria’s iconic kangaroos.

Download the Press Release pdf file here.