Guest guest Posted December 3, 2002 Report Share Posted December 3, 2002 ***************************Advertisement*************************** eCentral - Your Entertainment Guide http://www.star-ecentral.com ***************************************************************** This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from thestar.com.my URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2002/12/3/features/ozpest & sec=fe\ atures ________________________ Tuesday, December 03, 2002 Pest plague THE spotlight reaches into the darkness of the paddock searching for prey. The kangaroo sits upright, dazzled by the light. Seconds later, a crack from a rifle breaks the silent night air. The “roo” slumps to the ground dead, blood streaming from its head. The deadly ritual is repeated every few minutes until 15 roos lay dead in the paddock near Narrandera in Australia & #8217;s drought-stricken western New South Wales state. The corpses are slung on hooks on the hunter & #8217;s truck and butchered under the stars, using a small chainsaw, bolt-cutter and knives. The meat is destined for pet food. The intestines, feet and head are left in the dirt for foxes and crows to devour. Evidence of the carnage will be gone in days, but with hundreds of roos still in nearby paddocks the night-time culling will continue. This is the life of Australia & #8217;s professional kangaroo shooter, damned by environmentalists but praised by farmers for ridding them of one of their biggest pests & #8211; the kangaroo. Some 3.5 million kangaroos are culled each year, supporting a A$200mil (RM428mil) industry based on the meat and skins, but numbers keep swelling. The kangaroo may be an Australian national emblem, standing with pride on Australia & #8217;s coat of arms, but with more than 58 million roos it is now in record plague proportions, damaging the environment and competing with livestock for scarce food. With Australia in the grip of its worst drought in 100 years, it is not only the kangaroo that is fighting for food, but also tens of millions of wild rabbits, pigs, foxes, camels, cats, goats and horses. Australia has been invaded by at least 80 species of animals introduced since white settlement more than 200 years ago. More than 30 of these species are now declared pests, causing economic losses totalling a conservative estimate of A$420mil (RM899mil), mainly in lost agricultural production, says the government & #8217;s Bureau of Rural Sciences. The hungry introduced animals contribute to land degradation, destroy native vegetation and cause soil erosion, reducing the number of sheep or cattle a farmer can carry on his land. More than A$60mil (RM128mil) a year is spent controlling the pests, and another A$20mil (RM42.8mil) on pest control research. The native kangaroos are not classed as feral pests so there have been no studies into the economic losses they cause. But farmers say over-grazing by huge mobs of “roos” causes millions of dollars worth of damage to drought-hit pastures and robs starving sheep and cattle of much needed feed. <b>Sport gone wrong</b> Australia & #8217;s worst pest is the rabbit, introduced by a settler who released 24 into the wild for sport hunting. In less than 100 years, the rabbits multiplied into the millions & #8211; leaving large areas of land looking like cratered moonscapes due to hundreds of rabbit burrows. “The rate of spread of the rabbit in Australia was the fastest of any colonising mammal anywhere in the world,” says the Bureau of Rural Sciences. The release of the rabbit virus myxomatosis in 1950 temporarily cut numbers, but it was not until 1997 and the release of another disease targeting the pests, calicivirus, that numbers were finally brought under control. Farm losses due to rabbits today still total a staggering A$200mil (RM428mil) a year and other pests continue to run rampant. The European red fox, also released for sport hunting, is thriving and massacring sheep flocks, costing farmers A$40mil (RM85.6mil) a year. The state of Victoria offers a A$10 (RM21.40) bounty for each fox tail and has gathered 25,000 in the space of a few months. A glimmer of hope has come in the return to fashion of fox fur in Europe and China. Last month, hunter Don McGilvray & #8217;s tin shed in Narrandera was stacked to the roof with 23,000 fox skins destined for export. “Foxes are one of the biggest threats to wildlife in Australia. Foxes kill thousands of lambs, birds and native wildlife,” says McGilvray as he prepared for a night & #8217;s kangaroo shooting around Narrandera. <b>Pigs dine on lamb</b> Pigs were introduced as a food source for Australia & #8217;s settlers, but escaped and now an estimated 22 million compete for grazing, eat animals, foul water holes and carry diseases. The annual cost of their destruction is put at A$100mil (RM214mil). Weighing up to 90kg and bristling with hair and tusks, wild pigs kill and eat up to 40% of lambs in some areas, says government department Environment Australia. The feral pig population can double each year and farmers fear that if foot and mouth disease ever enters Australia, the pigs will spread it across the nation. Wiping out an outbreak of foot and mouth, a highly contagious stock disease that would close many world markets to Australian meat, would require the hunting down of 95% of wild pigs, estimates Howard Crozier from the New South Wales Farmer & #8217;s Association. In the outback, helicopter shooters cull feral pigs which sometimes run in packs of more than 100. In farmlands, pig hunters dressed in army fatigues and armed with high-powered rifles and leather armour-clad “pig dogs” hunt the wild boars. The dogs bite a pig & #8217;s ears to bring it down, and hold the thrashing animal until the shooter arrives to finish it off. Some farmers and wildlife rangers fear hunters deliberately stock forests with pigs to preserve the sport. Rangers say they have found wild pigs with ears cut off, making them harder for dogs to catch. Despite hundreds of years of shooting and poisoning feral animals, Australia has failed to eradicate even one species. & #8211; Reuters<p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.