5 ms·

Kangaroo is one hell of a pest in Australia. It's a native, which made it illegal for the general populace to hunt in the early 2000's (this doesn't apply to Au

Kangaroo is one hell of a pest in Australia. It's a native, which made it illegal for the general populace to hunt in the early 2000's (this doesn't apply to Australian Aboriginals). Non-Aboriginals who want to hunt them have to go through tedious multi-day "ethics" courses on about how you should and shouldn't hunt them, and even after that your options are limited and the process is ridiculous. Unfortunately this has led to kangaroos reaching plague proportions. They destroy farms, tear down fences and generally be a nuisance. You can barely drive through rural roads without breaking a sweat in case a kangaroo jumps in the way of your car. The problem here is multi-fold. The location issue:- 1. Due to Australia's sharp weather, areas could suddenly fall under drought which would result in a sharp decline in kangaroo numbers. 2. As a result of this, kangaroo culling is disincentivized in other areas even though there is an uptick rather than a decline. The species issue:- 1. There were originally about eight distinct breeds or so of kangaroo, but things like hunting and drought has reduced the numbers of those species dramatically. 2. The outcome was to limit the amount of kangaroo culling so as to not affect other breeds. 3. As a result, overall numbers haven't declined - rather they have sharply risen - and certain breeds have "muscled out" the at-risk breeds. Firearms laws in Australia:- 1. The Australian government banned most firearms after a massacre in 1996. 2. The Australian public has since come to find guns "dirty" and Australian lawmakers (coincidentally, those belonging to the same parties that outlawed hunting of kangaroos) do not want to promote firearms (even in a licensed, limited fashion) 3. Promoting the culling of these species would run counter to their political discourse for the last couple of decades.

Jedd 9y ago
Grammatical aside -- historically, aboriginal is an adjective, aborigine is a noun -- so you could talk about Australian aborigines, or aboriginal Australians. Agreed on pest status of kangaroos. They are hugely destructive animals, worse than goats especially as the larger kangaroos can clear almost any fence, plus can do you some serious physical harm if they feel threatened. There's arguably 4-6 species that come under the heading kangaroo. Then you've got the wallabies (anything not big enough to be considered a kangaroo), and the wallaroos (anything not either of the above). Then a few other categories (tree wallabies, say). I feel the taxonomy is unnecessarily confusing. IIRC, the biggest problem with roos and droughts are that they can stall development of their young, and then re-start it once the drought breaks -- so as a group they're very quick to bounce back in numbers. I think your take on firearms and Australians' attitude towards same comes across as a bit loaded. Firearm laws weren't exactly USA-style levels of free-n-easy pre-1996. The same people that would go out shooting kangaroos pre-1996 are the same people that are able to legally obtain guns with relative ease today. Most of the law reform was around semi-automatic, self-loading and pump action style weapons. So, not terribly high-impact in terms of kangaroo culling by farmers. I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost every non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially amongst those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and consequences of same. I'm even more dubious about the correlation of political party's attitudes towards firearms and kangaroo culling. I don't know how trustworthy this source [1] is, but it suggests the four main political parties in 2016 were not against the idea of commercial kangaroo culling. Two fringe groups were against it, but all other parties noted there had 'no official policy'. I don't know of any political discourse that would be in jeopardy by either the current administration, or the primary opposition group, by advocating kangaroo culling. [1] https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  > I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost every non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially amongst those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and consequences of same. Switzerland, Czechia and all the Nordic countries disagree. ~Every house with an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun. Czechia recently added the right to bear arms to their constitution. All of the Nordic countries have large national gun clubs, I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the population as members, to dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Every house with an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun. Not true. First of all it's voluntary to keep your gun after military service, and even if you do choose to keep your weapon it's illegal to have ammunition for that gun at home (with a couple of very small exceptions). All of the Nordic countries have large national gun clubs No they don't. They have local gun clubs for recreational target shooting and hunting practice, but I wouldn't call them particularly popular. I don't know anybody who shoots outside of hunting, which admittedly is relatively popular. And basically everybody still thinks that the US notion of people just carrying pistols around with them is batshit insane. I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the population as members, to dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression. What??? I grew up in Norway and lived almost 20 years there and never heard anyone claim anything even close to that.
throwa21231 9y ago
Being Australian living in Central Australia, we havn't had an issue until this year, 2 of my friends have nearly had their cars totaled by kangaroos. Hunting licenses should be a lot easier to obtain.

Jedd 9y ago

Grammatical aside -- historically, aboriginal is an adjective, aborigine is a noun -- so you could talk about Australian aborigines, or aboriginal Australians. Agreed on pest status of kangaroos. They are hugely destructive animals, worse than goats especially as the larger kangaroos can clear almost any fence, plus can do you some serious physical harm if they feel threatened. There's arguably 4-6 species that come under the heading kangaroo. Then you've got the wallabies (anything not big enough to be considered a kangaroo), and the wallaroos (anything not either of the above). Then a few other categories (tree wallabies, say). I feel the taxonomy is unnecessarily confusing. IIRC, the biggest problem with roos and droughts are that they can stall development of their young, and then re-start it once the drought breaks -- so as a group they're very quick to bounce back in numbers. I think your take on firearms and Australians' attitude towards same comes across as a bit loaded. Firearm laws weren't exactly USA-style levels of free-n-easy pre-1996. The same people that would go out shooting kangaroos pre-1996 are the same people that are able to legally obtain guns with relative ease today. Most of the law reform was around semi-automatic, self-loading and pump action style weapons. So, not terribly high-impact in terms of kangaroo culling by farmers. I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost every non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially amongst those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and consequences of same. I'm even more dubious about the correlation of political party's attitudes towards firearms and kangaroo culling. I don't know how trustworthy this source [1] is, but it suggests the four main political parties in 2016 were not against the idea of commercial kangaroo culling. Two fringe groups were against it, but all other parties noted there had 'no official policy'. I don't know of any political discourse that would be in jeopardy by either the current administration, or the primary opposition group, by advocating kangaroo culling. [1] https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions

barry-cotter 9y ago
> I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost every non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially amongst those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and consequences of same. Switzerland, Czechia and all the Nordic countries disagree. ~Every house with an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun. Czechia recently added the right to bear arms to their constitution. All of the Nordic countries have large national gun clubs, I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the population as members, to dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression.
- dagw 9y ago
  Every house with an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun. Not true. First of all it's voluntary to keep your gun after military service, and even if you do choose to keep your weapon it's illegal to have ammunition for that gun at home (with a couple of very small exceptions). All of the Nordic countries have large national gun clubs No they don't. They have local gun clubs for recreational target shooting and hunting practice, but I wouldn't call them particularly popular. I don't know anybody who shoots outside of hunting, which admittedly is relatively popular. And basically everybody still thinks that the US notion of people just carrying pistols around with them is batshit insane. I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the population as members, to dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression. What??? I grew up in Norway and lived almost 20 years there and never heard anyone claim anything even close to that.

throwa21231 9y ago

Being Australian living in Central Australia, we havn't had an issue until this year, 2 of my friends have nearly had their cars totaled by kangaroos. Hunting licenses should be a lot easier to obtain.