Transcript
Kris: In some areas where this has been studied, vehicle collisions were actually the largest killer of kangaroos, potentially causing up to 70% of deaths in that area.
Brian: Hello and welcome to RSPCA Australia's Great and Small Talk, where we discuss the pressing welfare issues animals face in Australia. I'm Brian Daly, and today we're joined by Dr Kris Descovich, Senior Scientific Officer at RSPCA Australia, to talk about kangaroos, and specifically the welfare issues relating to peri-urban kangaroos. Welcome to the podcast, Kris.
Kris: Thank you, I'm happy to be here.
Brian: Now we're all obviously quite familiar with kangaroos as the iconic species they are, with population estimates for around 40 million of them around the country at the moment, and they would have to be the most widely recognized of Australia's native wildlife around the world. But what do we mean when we're talking about peri-urban kangaroos?
Kris: Well, peri-urban refers to those areas where the urban environment tends to start merging into a rural landscape, so it doesn't appear strongly as either an urban or rural area. There might be a location where there starts to be some reasonable amounts of human infrastructure, such as houses and yards and fences, and these can be areas that are transitioning from a rural to an urban landscape, so there might be some active development, or it can be areas where it might be an urban area, but it backs onto some more natural environments. Or there might be some big open grassy spaces like golf courses. And essentially peri-urban kangaroos are kangaroos who live in these kinds of environments. And I would say the two species that are most likely to be found here are the Eastern and Western gray kangaroos, particularly the Eastern grays, because they're highly abundant along the east coast of Australia.
Brian: And what causes the populations of peri-urban kangaroos?
Kris: It's essentially this urban expansion into kangaroo habitat, and this has the effect where it decreases available habitat to kangaroos in that area, and it also causes fragmentation of the habitat. And this fragmentation can cause like pockets of populations that are isolated from each other or have more barriers to overcome for them to interact. And generally, roads are one of the first things that pop up when this urbanisation is starting to occur, and this has a particularly strong effect in terms of fragmentation and discouraging the movement of kangaroos. So what happens is they have a reduced ability to disperse, and this plays a role in creating these kinds of isolated populations of kangaroos. And some of these populations can be, you know, reasonably dense in terms of how many kangaroos in that area, some might be increasing in terms of numbers, while others might be reasonably stable, or may actually be declining over time. And this depends on how many you know, how much expansion of development is in that area, and it also depends on how much remaining habitat is left for these kangaroos to occupy.
Brian: And what are the welfare risks to kangaroos from living so close to this development to humans?
Kris: There's quite a few challenges that kangaroos have to navigate to safely live in this kind of environment, and they need to do this on a daily basis, so they can be quite exposed to quite a bit of danger. I mentioned roads before, and roads in particular, have a substantial risk to peri-urban kangaroos because it can create areas where kangaroos need to commonly cross roads in order to move around their habitat. And in some areas where this has been studied, vehicle collisions were actually the largest killer of kangaroos, potentially causing up to 70% of deaths in that area. This can affect the different kangaroo sexes differently. So females, for peri-urban kangaroos, they tend to be more stable. They tend to stick around the same area a bit more, while males will disperse more widely, especially during the non breeding season. And so they are actually at higher risk of being hit by cars. And there was one study that looked at one of the main wildlife hospitals in Queensland, and they found that being hit by a car was actually the number one reason that kangaroos in that area were admitted to the hospital. It was around 40% of all the kangaroos that came in were hit by cars, and the closest other cause after that was being orphaned, and that, of course, is also affected by cars, because a lot of joeys are orphaned because their mothers are hit by a car. So unfortunately, these vehicle strikes are actually a big cause of kangaroo deaths, particularly for peri-urban kangaroos that need to constantly be crossing these roads. It's not the only risk to them, there are also other risks, so free-ranging dogs in these kinds of areas can chase and kill and injure kangaroos, and these are not necessarily wild dogs, they can be roaming pet dogs. So it's really important that owners don't allow their dogs to roam freely, and they don't allow their dogs to injure and chase wildlife. Because not only is this cruel, particularly if they catch the kangaroo. But kangaroos are also protected, and allowing this is actually illegal. And then, of course, there are other smaller risks to do with the fragmentation and isolation of these populations. It can actually lead to inbreeding if they can't access other kangaroo groups, and this can overall reduce, like the genetic health of these populations and these individuals.
Brian: I guess there's risks to people as well, living so close to kangaroo populations.
Kris: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the estimates are about one in three kangaroo car collisions result in injury to a person in the car. So yeah, while these represent a big welfare risk to those kangaroos, it does represent a risk to people as well.
Brian: And how do people feel typically, about these peri-urban kangaroos living in and around their communities?
Kris: I think there's a mix of opinions. I think generally, kangaroos are a very well-loved animal, you know, an Australian icon. And I think communities that have a large amount of kangaroos, they can be very well-loved as well, and they can even be tourist attractions. There can be concerns from those communities, though, around those car collisions, and there can also be concerns around being in very close proximity to these animals, that there may be a risk of a physical attack. I mean, we have had cases in the past where kangaroos have attacked people, and sometimes very, very severely. And I think that can be a risk, and that can be a concern for people as well.
Brian: Do kangaroos behave differently in different habitats?
Kris: For the most part, kangaroos are kangaroos, and they have a lot of the same behaviors, regardless of where they are, but there are some documented behavioral differences that occur between peri-urban kangaroos and kangaroos that are in a more rural environment. One of the main differences that has been apparent is how well they tolerate people in close proximity to them. So kangaroos that are in a peri-urban environment, they tend to allow people to come closer to them, as long as they've not had previously bad experiences with people. If they're in an area where they tend to get harassed and chased or hunted, then they will tend to flee a lot more quickly. So that's one of the main documented differences in their behavior. There are a lot of similarities too, they tend to like the same kind of habitats. They tend to like open grassy areas with good quality forage to forage on and they like sheltered areas that are forested to provide them with some protection from predators and also the weather. So there are a lot of similarities between them as well.
Brian: What are some of the methods used to manage peri-urban kangaroo populations, and are there welfare risks with these methods?
Kris: I think the most important thing in terms of managing these kangaroos just to try and prevent this problem from happening in the first place, and that's through careful urban planning of these environments that really recognises that kangaroos and other wildlife, they don't respect council borders. They don't respect, you know, individual developments, they operate at a spatial scale that's really natural to their ranging behavior. And it's important that when planning occurs, it's really thinking about wildlife and planning for their needs as well as the needs of people. So I think that's the most important thing, really, and hopefully, with good proactive planning, it can really reduce some of the issues that may require more invasive management strategies. I would say the most common management strategy for peri-urban kangaroos is actually lethal shooting of them. This is a big welfare concern because it can result in some pretty severe welfare outcomes for kangaroos, and there have been some studies around the humaneness of shooting, lethal shooting of kangaroos, and under best practice conditions where you've got a great marksman, when they've achieved a headshot, the animal can lose consciousness straight away, which can result in a very humane death, because there's no time for suffering or fear or distress. The welfare concerns associated with this kind of management strategy, though, is how often does that not occur? How often are they wounded? And they may even escape and can't be re-shot, and they may suffer a very prolonged death. The other concern is really around what happens to the joeys? Because kangaroos are marsupials, they will often have joeys in the pouch, or they may have a joey that's out of the pouch, but still dependent on their mother. Often, we don't know what really happens to these joeys. They're required to be killed if they're a dependent young and their mother is shot. But we don't really know if that happens all the time. We don't really have numbers on how often that happens. So the fate of the joeys is really a significant welfare concern. If they escape and they still depend on their mother, even that's a welfare concern because they die a very prolonged death from starvation or predation.
Brian: And are there alternatives to lethal culling of these populations, like translocation or fencing or fertility control?
Kris: There are some alternatives to lethal shooting, and communities generally don't really support lethal shooting unless there's welfare concerns. They do ... the community generally prefers non lethal methods, but some of these are very high impact as well. So translocation is often pitched as an alternative, because it sounds pretty straightforward, just move them onto a new area, but it's actually quite a high risk strategy, because it's quite invasive. To do that, kangaroos need to be captured. They're usually sedated, and they need to be moved to a new area. This is quite stressful for kangaroos, and kangaroos are pretty susceptible to something called stress myopathy, where they will actually suffer from an illness very rapidly that basically decomposes their muscles, and it can occur from the physical stress, but also the psychological stress of this kind of capture procedure. They're not the only species that happens to, it also happens to other species, like deer, but it's a big concern for translocation activities. And of course, once they've moved, then that's also a very high-stress event, because then they are moved to a new area, and they have to re-establish themselves, and that's not a very easy thing to do. So that is one option, but it's not a very easy and it's not a very low-impact option, I would say. There are some other options. So there are infrastructure options, like fencing that can help move kangaroos to different areas or avoid particularly problematic areas, like particularly some roads. Fencing itself can also be a barrier, though, to movement, so we have to be really careful that fences don't create situations where we have kangaroos that can't reach food and water and they're dying of thirst and starvation. So they can create welfare concerns as well. And then there are some other options. There's actually some reproductive options that help suppress reproductive rates in those populations, and this can be reasonably low-impact, but it's not always very practical, so it only really suits populations that are quite isolated and quite small, but it's not going to suit populations where there's a lot of migration between groups, or the ... or the group itself is quite large.
Brian: And why can't these kangaroos just be left to remain there in their natural habitat, undisturbed, even while the developments are happening and they make their own way?
Kris: Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think it's a question that should be asked every time we're thinking, should we manage this population? Because sometimes they can just be left, and I think communities generally, often they prefer kangaroos to be left as they are. However, sometimes that's not going to be very feasible, particularly if the urbanisation in their area has led to welfare concerns. So if we have an isolated population of kangaroos and they can't reach sufficient food or water, then they're going to be suffering and they may starve, and that is a very poor welfare outcome, because it's a very distressing and prolonged death. There may be some other reasons as well. There have been concerns in some areas about how much kangaroo grazing pressure affects some endangered species, some smaller species that we don't maybe think about as much because they're little and they're cryptic. So there might be some interactions that are for a conservation reason that mean that they can't be left, and then there may be other reasons. So I mentioned before sometimes there are direct conflicts between kangaroos and people, maybe the risks are deemed as problematic, and so there may be some context like that that come up where management is required. So I do think that question should be asked every time we looking to manage, but there may be some reasonable reasons why kangaroos need to be managed, and they should be managed humanely with good monitoring whenever that needs to occur.
Brian: And you mentioned the shooting as the method of management. How does this compare to kangaroo shooting in other contexts we have, like commercial or non-commercial, and in agriculture environments?
Kris: Essentially shooting of kangaroos in Australia is guided by two codes of practice. One is the commercial code, and that applies to commercial harvesting when harvesters will go out and shoot kangaroos specifically for the purpose of using those products. The other code is the non-commercial code. That is used when there's people who wanted to mitigate the damage kangaroos might be causing on their farms, and it can also apply in this peri-urban environment as well. Essentially, it's any non-commercial environment, and these two codes are very similar, but there are aspects of the non-commercial code that are a bit more ... have a bit more leeway. And unfortunately, those aspects that allow more leeway are also the aspects that create more risk in terms of welfare. Two big concerns that we really have for the non commercial code is that a shooter operating under the non-commercial code requires no competency test at all, while a commercial harvester must actually go and have a test of their competency as a shooter. People who are shooting for damage mitigation, we don't really know how good they are at shooting, whether they are achieving a humane death, or whether they are not, they might need to shoot several times. We just don't know. We don't have that data. So that's a real concern. The other big difference between the two is that for commercial harvesting, the kangaroo must be headshot, and a well-placed headshot to the brain should result in instantaneous death and no suffering. But in the non-commercial code, you can actually shoot a kangaroo using a test shot, and that creates a larger risk of a distressing death, because they won't normally die straight away. They may be ... they might survive for several minutes, and although that doesn't sound very long, they would be a very distressing and painful period of time before they actually lose consciousness. So they're the two differences between them. There's no reason why someone shooting for damage mitigation or shooting peri-urban kangaroos can't shoot to the highest standard, and they absolutely should, regardless of the reason for shooting kangaroos, they should be shot humanely with instantaneous loss of consciousness and a rapid death, and that's what we would always be advocating for.
Brian: So, how can we better manage and look after these kangaroos going forward? Are there preventative measures that can help manage and avoid all these welfare risks that you're talking about?
Kris: I think that careful urban planning is really critical. There's nothing that can really overcome that management strategy, you know, careful and early planning can really avoid a lot of welfare issues later down the road. When it comes to living humanely and without risk side-by-side with kangaroos, I think there's a few things that people can do. Firstly, I think it's important for them to always remember that kangaroos are wild animals, and when you see kangaroos in your everyday life, you can maybe become a little bit complacent and feel that they're quite tame, and you could approach them, but it's just always important to remember that they're not domesticated. And when we've seen kangaroo attacks in the past, people may presume that they are unprovoked. But in reality, that's always happened because a kangaroo has perceived a threat, even if the person has done nothing wrong, even if they're just innocently gone about their day. The reality is that a wild animal may perceive you as a threat, whether you are or not, and that can trigger these kinds of things. So it's always good to keep a safe respectful distance from wildlife, including our kangaroos. I think the other thing we can do is make sure that our behavior around driving is careful and considerate to our wildlife. Because essentially, in these situations, kangaroos have really no other option but to cross roads, and they may have to do this every single day. So there are high-risk periods of when a kangaroo is more likely to cross a road, and that's around dusk. In the night time, in the dawn, it also tends to happen more if they don't have cover to retreat to beside the side of the road. So if a car's coming and they're on the side of the road grazing, and they feel threatened, they may respond by that fleeing behavior that we see in kangaroos that's quite erratic, and they can accidentally jump out onto the road, which makes them more likely to be hit. So I think being careful around wildlife when you're driving, make sure that you're driving carefully, keeping a good lookout for the animals that are close to the road and are at risk. And I think that can do a lot of good towards mitigating some of the vehicle accidents that we see with wildlife.
Brian: It's really timely talking about this, Kris, with it, not just for kangaroos, but around the world, there's increasing human incursions into these wild landscapes and destroying natural habitats. And we really need to look at how we're going to live more harmoniously, as you say, with these other wild species, and appreciate them for being wild species, if we're going to share this planet with them, including our kangaroos. So thanks for your time today, Kris, it's been really great talking with you.
Kris: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Brian: We've been talking today with Dr Kris Descovich, Senior Scientific Officer at RSPCA Australia, and thank you for listening. If you would like any more information on kangaroo welfare, you can visit the RSPCA website at rspca.org.au. You can also subscribe to the podcast series at the website, or all the usual podcast suspects. I'm Brian Daly, and I look forward to your company next time on RSPCA Australia's Great and Small Talk.
