Media Release

04 August 2004; for immediate use

“Think twice” before you go Down-under urges Viva!

Campaigning animal welfare group Viva! has joined forces with the Australian Wildlife Protection Council to launch a campaign, “Australia’s Hidden Shame”, urging potential tourists to think twice about planning a trip ‘down under’ in light of the annual slaughter of millions of kangaroos for their meat and skins.

The kangaroo is second only to the Statue of Liberty as the most recognised tourist symbol in the world*, and Australia recently launched its biggest ever push for visitors with a $360 million (Aus) promotional campaign with a logo featuring the iconic marsupial. Seeing mobs of kangaroos in the wild is a must for most visitors but the chances of them achieving this are diminishing by the day. “Many an outback tourist will lament that of the few kangaroos they saw, the majority were roadkills”, says Dr David Croft, University of New South Wales.

This year alone 4.4 million adult kangaroos have been earmarked for slaughter for their meat and skins. Baby joeys - worthless to the industry - are ripped from their dead mothers' pouches and bludgeoned, decapitated or simply abandoned to die of starvation and neglect. Australia has recently suffered one of the worst droughts on record and bush fires have decimated kangaroo numbers, yet the kangaroo industry continues to kill unabated.

Former kangaroo shooter, David Nichols, dismissed those who promote the slaughter: “Not only have they got it all wrong” he says, “they are doing the “bush” a gross disservice in taking peanuts for a bloodied outback instead of a fortune in tourism. Their stupidity never ceases to amaze me.”

The massacre of 800 kangaroos and their joeys in July, at the Googong Dam wildlife reserve outside of Canberra, recently attracted media attention around the world, and some sections in the Australian media have expressed concerns that this will damage the $70 billion (Aus) a year Australian tourism industry.
  
Viva! campaigner Justin Kerswell says: "The Australian Government and tourism industries are cynically using the image of a kangaroo to attract international visitors, whilst butchering millions of them every year out of the view of tourists. Not only is this dishonest, it’s the ultimate betrayal of this much loved icon. International visitors are being hoodwinked into believing that the Australian Government values the kangaroo, little knowing that the only value they place on them is the blood money their meat and skins bring.

“ We are calling on people thinking of travelling to Australia to consider whether they really want to visit a country that harbours the largest massacre of land animals in the world today. We are also encouraging them to write to Government and tourism bodies in Australia to express their concerns.

“ Wildlife safaris, where tourists could view large mobs of kangaroos in the wild, could swell income from tourism enormously, but ordinary Australians must ask themselves why it has barely been tried. The finger of blame points squarely at the Australian Government, which for short term political reasons has chosen to support the killing industry, despite it being worth less that 0.3 per cent of current tourist revenues, ignoring the fact that kangaroos are worth more to Australia alive than they are dead.”

Contact: Justin Kerswell on 0117 944 1000

Australia’s Hidden Shame: http://www.savethekangaroo.com/tourism/

* Kangaroos in the Marketing of Australia. CRC Sustainable Tourism, Australia.
http://www.crctourism.com.au/CRCBookshop/Documents/FactSheets/ENV0019KangaMrktg.pdf

Notes for Editors: Images of kangaroos and kangaroo shooting are available from Viva!.
 
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