From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2002:

Australian “aliens” in their native land

Thank you for speaking out against the illogical mass killing
of both introduced and native animals in Australia. It will be
beneficial for people with no understanding of the fact that animals,
feral or not, are each and every one the experiencing subject of a
life, to learn that Australia is being criticised overseas for its
callous attitudes.
An item last night on our national ABC Seven Thirty Report
absolutely bore out everything in the September 2002 ANIMAL PEOPLE
cover feature, “Aliens in their native land.” There was a big story
about the “plague” of kangaroos, said to be in “pest proportions,”
eating all the grass that should be left for the starved cattle
during the drought. Many farmers were interviewed, all saying we
need a vast slaughter of kangaroos, and that kangaroos are the most
prolific breeder, and that we should be farming kangaroos, not
sheep, without a single animal rights person included to even
comment that the kangaroos were here first and we took their land,
and they have come in to eat in the paddocks because all their
rangelands have been destroyed by sheep and cattle grazing.
This year the legal kangaroo kill has already been increased
25% from last year. The topsoil that belonged to the forests and the
aborigines and the kangaroos is blowing away. If the earth was left
unploughed and ungrazed, there would be enough dry grass and scrub
to hold the soil until the drought passes. It has been known for 100
years that the Australia inland has erratic rainfall which cannot be
depended upon, yet in times of plenty the paddocks are still
overstocked, so that in the bad seasons the earth is degraded,
cracked and eroded.
–Christine Townend
Leura, NSW
Australia
<CJTownend@bigpond.com>

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