A century-old Queensland kangaroo leather export business warns a proposed ban on sales to the US would be disastrous for an industry just getting over Covid.
U.S. Activists Try to Halt an Australian Way of Life: Killing Kangaroos
A bill in Congress aims to ban all kangaroo products from Australia, setting up a clash between two very different kinds of people on opposite ends of the earth.
Ian White, a commercial hunter, carrying a kangaroo he had shot in Surat, Australia.
May 22, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
SURAT, Australia Ian White drove slowly over the red dirt track, past wheat stubble and into the long grass, where he glimpsed a tuft of white fur moving near the woods to his left.
It was a warm autumn night in the Australian outback. He turned on the spotlight sitting atop his truck, finding a kangaroo 150 yards away.
This still occurs in parts of the country today, particularly where the commercial industry does not operate – and it is the killing of female kangaroos and their young joeys that has become the core focus of animal rights campaigners in the US.
The development of the commercial kangaroo industry over the last 30 years was intended to address the situation by introducing strict regulations at every stage of the process. Admittedly, says Dennis King, chief executive officer of the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia, the industry remains small today. It employs around 3,000 people, not counting the shooters, and only operates in those regions where the four largest kangaroo species are overabundant.
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