Australians urge to cull kangaroos

Melbourne: Australian hunters and shooters on Monday called for an "open season" to cull kangaroos and help control their rising numbers in the state of Victoria.

A proposal from the Victorian Shooters and Fishers Party has recommended that a kangaroo cull be allowed in the southern state as the soaring population has become invasive and proven to be a heightened risk to motorists, Xinhua news agency reported.

Daniel Young, the party's senate representative, said kangaroos had become a nuisance in parts of the state and that more road accidents were occurring due to an increased population.

He called for an open season similar to those which allow shooters to hunt birds and other game. "There could be a very simple solution if we just looked at it without getting emotionally worked up," he told Fairfax Media on Monday.

"Why is there not an open season for kangaroos, with the same regulations and rules that any other game species has, in which we would be allowed to hunt kangaroos



for a certain period of the year?"

Young proposed the hunt could be overseen by the Game Management Authority, which currently manages the controversial duck hunting season in Victoria.

However the plan has angered environmental groups, as kangaroos are currently a protected species in Victoria. Hunters can buy a permit to shoot kangaroos, which state Greens party leader Greg Barber said was very easy to apply for.

"It's actually very easy to get a permit," he said. "There's no supervision during roo culling and there's no feedback, by the way -- you might get a permit to kill a thousand animals but you don't ever report back to the department how many you actually killed."

He said the Victorian bushland was the kangaroos natural habitat, and a kangaroo cull could stir up heated debate within rural communities.

"This idea, which of course will never be implemented, would set neighbour against neighbour," he said.