kangaroos at risk
  • home
  • forward: Dr Johannes Bauer
  • 1. introduction
  • 2. biology & population ecology
  • 3. counting kangaroos
  • 4. how many kangaroos?
  • 5. threats
  • 6. kangaroo myths & legends
  • 7. what went wrong?
  • risk analysis urgently required
  • endnote
  • references
  • appendix 1. kangaroo management case study
  • appendix 2. boorowa vegetation maps
  • 1st supplementary submission
  • 2nd supplementary submission
  • 3rd supplementary submission
  • home
  • forward: Dr Johannes Bauer
  • 1. introduction
  • 2. biology & population ecology
  • 3. counting kangaroos
  • 4. how many kangaroos?
  • 5. threats
  • 6. kangaroo myths & legends
  • 7. what went wrong?
  • risk analysis urgently required
  • endnote
  • references
  • appendix 1. kangaroo management case study
  • appendix 2. boorowa vegetation maps
  • 1st supplementary submission
  • 2nd supplementary submission
  • 3rd supplementary submission

kangaroos at risk

risk analysis urgently required

The worst case scenario – as little as 1 or 2% of kangaroo populations remaining through some regions – is an alarming one. The author has reviewed a large section of the literature with regard to kangaroos and their management in NSW in preparing this nomination, and has included many papers from other Australian states and overseas, and this scenario seems to be the most likely one.

The most rudimentary risk analysis, where severe losses (90%) may have already been incurred, and where numerous threatening processes are active, should suggest that immediate intervention is required. 

Author’s recommendation: Immediate cessation of shooting

Managers such as OEH-NPWS and DSEWPC cannot assume that crashing kangaroo populations are going to miraculously recover without a higher degree of protection. The only option, if the precautionary principle is to be applied, is to declare a moratorium on all hunting and shooting of kangaroos, and reclamation of all unused tags, while conflicting claims about their status (“more than there ever were” vs worst case scenario of only 1-2% remaining) are resolved.

Before anything like recovery planning can commence, or anything like a resumption of a harvest should occur, there needs to be unbiased, competent and scientifically rigorous counts of kangaroos conducted.

This nomination proposes a standardised count methodology that has no observer error, or need for correction factors or their corollary.

Simply mounting a camera (or cameras) on an aeroplane (or helicopter) and counting kangaroos systematically (in slow motion or in stop motion mode) will provide accurate and actual counts, which can be attributed to various habitat types and extrapolated after ground-truthing, to provide landscape scale population estimates. There will be no cost for “trained” observers, who apparently miss up to 90% of the animals in any case, given Pople & Grigg (1999) provide correction factors of up to 10.1 for Eastern Grey Kangaroos in open habitats at Longreach (that is: count 1, times by 10). This is admittedly better than the count-26-and-multiply-by-1456, which Cairns does with Wallaroos.

The proposed camera (recorded) survey methodology will represent a cheaper and more effective and accurate survey methodology, which can be checked by independent researchers. However the author would not have faith in the capacity of the existing experts (those persons who have been conducting surveys over the last 30 years), to conduct such work, given their poor track record to date (apparently they remain unaware of regional declines being shown in their data). The funding sources for research, and an unquestioning pro-harvest stance on the part of many of the researchers, only throws more uncertainty over the science supporting the “sustainable harvest” argument.

There needs to be new and demonstrably independent (unaffiliated) and competent researchers brought into the kangaroo management sector, to conduct comprehensive surveys, which should inform the recovery of the species.
Endnote >
Please cite any information copied or used from this website as: 
Mjadwesch R 2011 Nomination to List the Large Macropods as Threatened Species under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995  MESS  Bathurst

Originally printed: 20 December 2011

Raymond Mjadwesch
BATHURST  NSW  2795
Australia
​

+61 2 6331 5858
​+61 (0)423 949 789
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The author acknowledges the Wiradjuri people who are the traditional custodians of this land where he lives and works. He supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart; pays respect to the Elders of the Wiradjuri Nation past, present and emerging; and extends his respect and acknowledgement to other First Nations people across Australia where he works.
​Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. 
  • home
  • forward: Dr Johannes Bauer
  • 1. introduction
  • 2. biology & population ecology
  • 3. counting kangaroos
  • 4. how many kangaroos?
  • 5. threats
  • 6. kangaroo myths & legends
  • 7. what went wrong?
  • risk analysis urgently required
  • endnote
  • references
  • appendix 1. kangaroo management case study
  • appendix 2. boorowa vegetation maps
  • 1st supplementary submission
  • 2nd supplementary submission
  • 3rd supplementary submission