Prime Minister rejects claims of hypocrisy on kangaroo cull
Canberra Times, Page: 3. Monday, 17 March, 2008
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shrugged off claims the Federal Government is being hypocritical by planning a kangaroo cull in Canberra while criticising Japanese whaling.
A handful of people were maintaining a vigil at the old naval base at Belconnen yesterday after about 80 protesters gathered at the site of the proposed kangaroo cull on Saturday.
Four hundred eastern grey kangaroos will be killed with a lethal injection after the ACT Government cancelled the Department of Defence’s original plan to relocate them.
An expert panel headed by ACT Commissioner for the Environment Dr Maxine Cooper found relocation would be inhumane.
Japanese television and radio have focused on the protest against the kangaroo slaughter and linked it to Australia’s stance on whaling.
Japanese network TV reporter Hiroki Iijima said that Japanese people viewed the kangaroo cull as hypocritical.
Mr Rudd defended Australia’s position on whaling yesterday, but refused to go into the specifics of the kangaroo cull.
“Our attitude on whaling goes to the whole nature of the International Whaling Commission and relevant international convention, which is an agreement between many states, and it goes to whether or not what is occurring is scientific whaling or not,” he said.
“The reason we have commissioned activity during the course of the year to determine precisely what is going on in the Southern Ocean has been to establish whether or not that claim is true.” About a dozen protesters slept at the site on Saturday and last night, and the Wildlife Protection Association’s president, Pat O’Brien, said that protesters were not planning on going anywhere.
“We’ll stay as long as it takes arid we’ve heard that the Government is going to start killing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” Mr O’Brien said.
“We’ve got the neighbours here watching and they’ll tell us if there’s any sign of any killing starting to take place. We’ll go straight in over the fence and we’ll stand in front of their dart guns and physically stop them from killing. What we ‘d like to do is take the dart guns off them and throw them in the lake.” The RSPCA, which will witness the cull, does not support moving the kangaroos, and RSPCA chief executive officer Michael Linke has been working with the Defence Department to ensure the kangaroos culled have adequate water and shade.
But Mr O’Brien says that he is “very disappointed” with the RSPCA.
“They’re saying it’s inhumane to try and relocate them but it ‘s not inhumane if it ‘s done we]] and properly by experienced people.
They argue that it ‘s more humane to kill them than relocate them which is crazy,” he said.
Mr O’Brien said that he was expecting hundreds of people to come and go throughout the week.
Protesters have travelled from Sydney, Victoria and regional areas.
Television actress and Rights for Roos spokeswoman Fiona Corke, who travelled from Victoria, does not believe that kangaroos are overpopulated.
“That belief is generated by people who profit from kangaroos which is the kangaroo industry and farmers and so as long as they generate the myth that kangaroos are pests it makes it ok to kill them.”
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