Tell the Victorian Government: Stop the kangaroo slaughter!

Terrorised, injured, bludgeoned and killed… Victoria’s kangaroos and their joeys urgently need your voice.

Only a few years ago, the world united in grief and compassion for Australia’s wildlife. Images of suffering kangaroos against blackened, apocalyptic landscapes, orphaned joeys who survived the smoke and heat in their mum’s pouches being comforted by dedicated wildlife carers. Little did many know that the survivors of the devastating black summer bushfires would ultimately be released only to be put at risk of further fear and cruelty… but this time, for profit.

Kangaroos and other native animals are already vulnerable due to the government’s “Authority to Control Wildlife” (ATCW) System , which enables thousands of native animals – even threatened species – to be killed every year. This flawed system has come under immense criticism from the community and wildlife advocates, as it is a poorly administered and poorly regulated program that strips wildlife of their ‘protected’ status and allows them to be killed if land managers want them gone.

In a further blow to kangaroos, in 2019, the Victorian Andrews Government announced its innocuously named “Kangaroo Management Plan” – authorising the mass-slaughter of kangaroos for profit. This new plan also allowed landowners who obtained permits to kill kangaroos on their property under the ACWS to ‘harvest’ kangaroos – with disastrous results.

This incentivising of kangaroo killings led to an explosion in the number of kangaroos slaughtered – revealing the gross abuse of this permit system, with thousands of kangaroos and their joeys being slaughtered every year in Victoria to supply the lucrative ‘pet food’ industry.

Further to this, the Victorian Government has made the shocking decision to increase the number of kangaroos they are permitting to be slaughtered in 2023. Without a sound understanding of the impact recent severe floods have had on kangaroo populations, the state’s legal “quota” has increased by 27% – sentencing over 230,000 Victorian kangaroos to death.

This reckless decision has not only ensured terrible suffering to adult kangaroos – who are located by shooters in vehicles, terrified, shot at, injured and killed – but the treatment of vulnerable joeys is horrifying. Young joeys are legally allowed to be smacked against the tray of a ute to be killed, decapitated, or bludgeoned to death. Joeys that are able to hop on their own but still totally reliant on their mums to survive can be orphaned in the panic, left to slowly die on their own. Many will watch their mums killed in front of them before the shooters turn to them.

Wildlife carers have reported finding kangaroos and their joeys with horrific injuries after being shot at but escaping, left to die a slow and agonising death.

This cruel killing of native animals happens night after night in Victoria, under the cover of darkness, in remote areas or on private properties with little or no oversight. These gentle native animals are being abandoned to horrific cruelty and slaughter by the Victorian Government to appease a profit-driven industry.

Speak out for kangaroos

The Victorian Government has already publicly conceded that our wildlife protection laws are outdated, fail to protect wildlife and are out of step with community values. This has led to a current review of the Wildlife Act in Victoria. And yet kangaroos are specifically denied the protection they deserve, their value reduced to nothing more than dollar signs.

If you think kangaroos and their joeys should be protected, please take urgent action. Use the form below to send an instant message to your State MP and the Victorian Minister for the Environment, calling for them to act to protect kangaroos and end the commercial slaughter industry in Victoria.