Author: throughout the text author refers to the author of this nomination, Raymond Mjadwesch BAppSci, MEIANZ, CEnvP, Principal Consulting Ecologist, MJADWESCH ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE SUPPORT. Ray’s professional services profile is appended as Attachment 2.
The author is beyond angry. This sort of nomination is outrageous – that it is even needed. It should not be the author’s job to do this; the public trusts government agencies to do their job. For the agencies in charge of the management of wildlife in NSW to have been so derelict in their duties that it has come to my preparing this nomination, is a disgrace.
Acknowledgments: This nomination could not have been prepared without the support of my family; many papers cited in this report were located by my partner and MESS research assistant Helen Bergen, who also moderated much of the content. My parents Gerda and Norbert Mjadwesch, and uncle Bob Bronkhorst and aunty Pat Panaioli, collated over 3,000 roadkill records on a five week road-trip to central Australia. This data informed my position on current kangaroo distribution, providing also a clear case for roads as a key threatening process, and may form the basis for another paper on the distribution and abundance of kangaroos in NSW, Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia.
The Australian Society for Kangaroos and the World League for Protection of Animals provided documents obtained under FOI from the then DECCW (now OEH) and Bathurst Regional Council pertaining to the Mount Panorama cull; thank you to Nikki Sutterby, Fiona Corke and Lindy Stacker. Alarm bells have been ringing about the status of the kangaroo for some years. Nikki Sutterby, Doctors Croft, Auty and Ben-Ami, and a number of other investigators, have prepared the ground for this nomination, with papers dissenting from the prevailing views about kangaroos, and their status and “abundance” over the last few years.
NPWS were very helpful in discussing licensing systems and providing documents (particularly the Goobang NP Heritage Assessment (English et al 1998)); thank you Rangers Steve Woodhall (Bathurst), Jules Bros (Oberon) and Silvana Keating (Forbes), and (licensing section) Ron Herring (Hurstville). A special thank you to a particular NPWS ranger whose ignorance of the facts discussed in this nomination, and dismissiveness of the author’s concerns about wildlife management, have been major catalysts for this research project.
Dr Johannes Bauer, the author’s population ecology / wildlife management lecturer from Charles Sturt University in the 1990’s, was kind enough to review a DRAFT of this nomination. Johannes’ support for raising such a controversial issue came when it was needed, and while he may not be in complete accord with the author’s conclusions, his comparison between the kangaroo harvest and other overseas and historic wild-harvest disasters (see his introduction) were a revelation.
This nomination was written over a period of 2 years, while I was supposed to be completing projects for various clients; their forbearance with the extended time lines I subsequently incurred on these projects has been appreciated.
This nomination was lodged in 2011. There is continuing solid work researching this issue with NSW actual count data and survey transects, extracted under Freedom of Information applications, confirming how serious this issue needs to be taken.
The role of a decades-old honed communications strategy by the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia (KIAA) in partnership with the Australian government (via the RIRDC) is of great concern.
This, with the very real health risks posed by eating kangaroo (kangaroo meat is not tested for zoonotic diseases recognised as prevalent in kangaroos, such as Toxoplasmosis gondii) is a whole other area of concern. This website will be updated in the future when time can be found - however please contact the author if you would like to be updated on what is happening in the meantime.
