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Credit: Andrew Lee It’s just meat, okay? Get over it. If you’re really green at heart, and not a vegetarian, then you ought to think about eating Skippy. "What?" I hear you say. "Throw a treasured native species on the barbie? How can that be environmentally correct?" If you think about it, that question is a no-brainer for any conservation-minded person. First, kangaroos are not farmed (and may never be). They’re wild animals, perfectly suited to the dry and unforgiving Australian environment. Unlike our imported domesticated livestock – such as sheep, cows, pigs – they don’t breed like clockwork every year regardless of the availability of the resources they need to survive. When times are tough, they wait until things get better before producing more offspring. Not so fast They haven’t been selected to grow fast and fat, and they are superb at conserving energy and water, so they don’t need to eat or drink prolifically like those European interlopers. They don’t leave wet sloppy piles of dung for flies to breed in, just nice, dry grassy pellets. No flies on them. They don’t have hard hooves either, so they don’t compact the all-important humus layer of the soil, or cut up riverbanks and leave them vulnerable to erosion. All of which means they put less pressure on fragile ecosystems, especially in the agricultural zones that have suffered so much damage since European settlement. Second, only four of the sixty or so species of kangaroos are harvested: the ones that have boomed in numbers as a result of our provision of more pastures and watering holes. It is we who created the kangaroo population imbalance; and harvesting them helps set it right. Conservation through sustainable use Third, and most important, is that the kangaroo industry is an excellent working example of the concept of conservation through sustainable use (or CSU). To maintain kangaroo numbers for sustainable harvesting, you need to maintain kangaroo habitat. Roos like a nice patch of bush to shelter from the midday sun, for example, so maintaining lots of them means maintaining lots of bush. In turn, that bush is a vital habitat and refuge for many other plants and animals – the countless birds, bugs, butterflies, native flowers, shrubs and bushes that make up a healthy bushland, not to mention the far greater numbers of unseen but vital micro-organisms that make everything tick. Instead of bland monocultures of pasture (often sown with invasive exotic grasses), CSU delivers a more diverse, more robust ecosystem that can better withstand fires, droughts and climate change. Everyone wins, including landholders, because resources that are sustainably harvested from natural ecosystems not only have greater ecological resilience but economic resilience as well. Readers' comments
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common sense
We buy our Naturoo every week at our local IGA in Brisbane the Lemon pepper and wattleseed steaks are just great.
Eating kangaroo has to be the most common sense food there idea there is. Why on earth do we think that we have to import all these animals that don't belong here and do so much damage to our eco systems.
I only hope that common sense becomes much more common - before its too late.
roo rocks
I was trying to avoid beef for environmental reasons, but I'm a keen carnivore. Roo saved my life! I now have roo steaks, roo bolognese, roo curry. Roo is a really tasty meat, and an idea substitute for beef.
Kangaroo meat cannot replace livestock meat!
Kangaroos are perfect Australians as they have had millions of years to adapt and co-exist in our environment without damaging it. They actually add value to native grasses with their tails and urine, and eat the tops of grasses to reduce fire risk. However, their small amount of meat takes years to "grow", not like livestock, and they cannot be farmed or handled. The meat is not healthy as there are bacteria and parasites. Fencing would need to be at least 2 meters high. The costs would be prohibitive. How can we eat our national icons, anyway? A post-carbon age should be vegan, anyway! Protein from plant-based sources, with added herbs and spices, is much more efficient and humane. Get over eating meat!
Vivienne
Impossible to replace beef with kangaroo
One would think that a writer for a scientific journal could cope with simple mathematics. It is not possible to replace beef with meat from kangaroos.
To produce the same amount of meat from kangaroos as is currently produced by the beef industry would require over fifty times the total kangaroo population (not fifty times the current quota, fifty times the total population) be killed and processed each year.
The current kangaroo population has declined markedly over the past ten years due to drought and the millions already killed each year by the commercial kangaroo industry and under damage mitigation permits. The commercial kangaroo industry rarely meets it's quota because there are not enough kangaroos left in their killing zones to shoot.
Some research into the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon in America in the early 1900's will show some glaring comparisons to what is currently happening to Australia's kangaroos.
kangaroos
Oh please. Doesn't anyone understand the ecological role of kangaroos, they re-vegetate native grasses which is why they exist in large mobs. Native grasses are almost extinct in Australia having been ripped up, cleared as with most agricultural land.
The kangaroo industry has devastated kangaroo populations. The massive cruelty involved in the industry has been the focus of major international environmental campaigns.
Kangaroos cannot be farmed, they suffer from capture myopathy.
Get rid of hard hooved animals on marginal land; cut out coal mining, bring in campaigns to cut back on our emissions but leave our wildlife alone. Australia has one of the worst records in the world for fauna extinction.
Sue A.
Kangaroos
Once again we see that old furphy that putting a dollar value on wildlife is an incentive to preserve them. That really worked for tigers, elephants, thylacines, dodos, pandas, and countless other (now) endangered species didn't it? Why would it suddenly work now? The human species is motivated by short-term financial gain.