tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/kangaroo-hunting-58947/articlesKangaroo hunting – La Conversation2021-04-19T06:10:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1559042021-04-19T06:10:33Z2021-04-19T06:10:33ZA US ban on kangaroo leather would be an animal welfare disaster – and a missed farming opportunity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395616/original/file-20210419-21-18o001.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2700%2C1786&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US Congress is considering a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/917/titles?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr+917%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=2">proposed law</a> to ban the import and sale of kangaroo parts. Backed by a <a href="https://kangaroosarenotshoes.org">campaign</a> called Kangaroos Are Not Shoes, the bill is aimed at stopping Nike, Adidas and other big brands from using kangaroo leather in their products.</p>
<p>Supporters of <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/917/titles?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr+917%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=2">the bill</a> decry the “mass slaughter of kangaroos – more than two million a year”.</p>
<p>We have a combined 80 years experience in kangaroo management. In our view, this proposal is one of the most comprehensive own goals in history of improving kangaroo welfare. Our <a href="https://publications.rzsnsw.org.au/doi/pdf/10.7882/AZ.2018.043">research</a> <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/red-sand-green-heart-john-l-read/book/9781743056868.html">shows</a> the kangaroo industry leads to better kangaroo welfare, more stable populations and improved conservation outcomes. </p>
<p>Weakening the industry will result in more kangaroo suffering, not less. If the bill succeeds, it would further suppress global demand for kangaroo products, and allow unregulated, uncontrolled and unmonitored killing by amateur hunters to flourish.</p>
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<img alt="Sports shoes made from kangaroo leather." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395618/original/file-20210419-17-1vhh1z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The bill aims to prevent major sports brands from making products, such as shoes, from kangaroo leather.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>The industry state of play</h2>
<p>Kangaroos are widely dispersed and abundant on the temperate Australian rangelands where cattle and sheep are raised. Over the past 200 years their numbers have increased steadily <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2069670">due to</a> greater availability of pasture, increased watering points, dingo control and less Indigenous hunting. In the rangelands where aerial surveys are conducted, the kangaroo population is estimated at more than 40 million. </p>
<p>Harvesting of kangaroos in Australia is tightly controlled by state and federal governments, and quotas are set to ensure only a sustainable proportion of kangaroos are commercially harvested. </p>
<p>The graph below shows how only a tiny proportion of Australia’s kangaroo populations is harvested commercially each year, and at numbers far less than quotas allow.</p>
<p>In 2018 for example, the kangaroo population in commercial harvest areas in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia was about 42.6 million. The following year, a sustainable quota of 6.2 million was set (about 15% of the population). However, just 1.6 million kangaroos, or about 3.7% of the population, were harvested.</p>
<p>The commercial kangaroo industry employs accredited, licensed shooters who kill kangaroos in the field at night using high-powered spotlights and rifles. A national <a href="https://www.agrifutures.com.au/kangaroo-commercial-code/">code of practice</a> requires that kangaroos are shot in the head and die immediately.</p>
<p>Abattoirs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/australias-kangaroo-cull-humane-and-sustainable-or-exercise-in-cruelty">reject</a> carcasses not killed with a headshot. Commercial shooters must not target females with obvious young in their pouch or at foot. If a mother is shot, the joeys must also be killed using sanctioned methods. </p>
<p>Kangaroo meat is sold in Australia – to the <a href="https://farmers.org.au/blog/3-reasons-why-kangaroo-is-australias-most-underrated-meat/">food service</a> industry, retail outlets and as <a href="https://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/8605-australian-hunters-to-harvest-14k-kangaroos-for-pet-food">pet food</a> – and <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/controlled-goods/kangaroo">exported</a> to many countries.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394674/original/file-20210413-19-8et549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">National kangaroo population estimates, harvest quotas and actual harvest. Data from Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.</span>
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<h2>Managing kangaroo numbers</h2>
<p>Kangaroo numbers decline in droughts and rise in good seasons. They roam from property to property, and in and out of national parks, seeking best pastures in response to local rainfall. </p>
<p>Overabundant kangaroos are a serious issue for threatened plants and animals and revegetation programs. They also compromise landholders’ ability to manage their properties. For example, during drought, kangaroos <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/09/australia-farmers-dealing-with-drought-can-kill-kangaroos-that-compete-with-their-livestock/">graze on</a> valuable pasture, making it harder for farmers to keep cattle alive.</p>
<p>Because the commercial industry harvests so few kangaroos, landholders must <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/RJ19047">take steps</a> to prevent the animals from damaging their properties. They erect fences around clusters of properties, often with government support, to exclude kangaroos from pastures and watering points.</p>
<p>They use amateur shooters and even <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/node/16678">illegal poisons</a>, to reduce kangaroo numbers on their properties. <a href="https://publications.rzsnsw.org.au/doi/pdf/10.7882/AZ.2018.043">Our research</a> shows the number of permits for <a href="https://www.theland.com.au/story/5574700/new-kangaroo-culling-rules-start-today/">non-commercial culling</a> of kangaroos is increasing and in recent years exceeded the commercial harvest. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-its-been-raining-a-lot-but-that-doesnt-mean-australias-drought-has-broken-144702">Yes, it's been raining a lot – but that doesn't mean Australia's drought has broken</a>
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<p>Overabundance can also affect the welfare of the animals themselves. During the recent drought, for example, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-15/drought-drives-kangaroo-population-decline-in-nsw/13144680">millions</a> of kangaroos <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-05/harvest-cancelled-while-millions-of-kangaroos-starve-in-drought/11669190">starved</a> and breeding was suppressed, causing kangaroo numbers to <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0033/88719/quota-submission2019.pdf">fall markedly</a>.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/RJ19047">NSW Department of Primary Industries</a> and the <a href="https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/is-there-a-need-to-kill-kangaroos-or-wallabies/">RSPCA</a>, professional marksmen, operating within a commercial industry, are the most humane way to manage kangaroo populations.</p>
<p>When kangaroo kills are brought in for processing, regulators can monitor the industry’s compliance with welfare codes. Such monitoring is nonexistent with amateur culling. </p>
<p>We believe a further decline in the kangaroo industry – the goal of the proposed US legislation – will lead to worse animal welfare outcomes. It will prompt more amateur culling, and risks mass kangaroo starvation in the next drought.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-are-kangaroos-at-risk-37757">FactCheck: are kangaroos at risk?</a>
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<img alt="Kangaroos in vineyard" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395619/original/file-20210419-17-16tirex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kangaroos are currently considered pests by many landholders and farmers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Where to now?</h2>
<p>We welcome the Australian government’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/hopping-mad-us-campaign-to-ban-kangaroo-imports-gains-bipartisan-support-20210304-p577p6.html">opposition</a> to the bill. Regardless of whether the bill succeeds, a broader question remains: what should Australia’s future kangaroo industry look like?</p>
<p>We believe an alternative vision is required – one in which consumer demand for kangaroo products increases. Landholders would then consider kangaroos, including the young, valuable rather than pests – creating a form of custodianship and an incentive to integrate kangaroos with other farm enterprises. This would lead to more effective management and animal welfare outcomes. </p>
<p>Key to encouraging farmers to value kangaroos is increasing public demand for – and therefore the price of – kangaroo products. But in recent years, demand has been falling. For example, in 2016 California banned the import of kangaroo skins. This rendered them <a href="https://www.awt.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Wilson-and-Edwards-Kangaroo-Welfare-2018.pdf">worthless</a> and led to a processing plant at Broken Hill discarding them as town waste. <a href="https://publications.rzsnsw.org.au/doi/pdf/10.7882/AZ.2018.043">Our research</a> found in 2018 a kangaroo was worth as little as A$13 - much less than goats (A$70), sheep (A$100) or cattle (A$800). </p>
<p>Demand for kangaroo products could be increased by promoting:</p>
<ul>
<li>the positive health attributes of kangaroo meat</li>
<li>the leather’s <a href="https://www.agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/02-105.pdf">high</a> strength-to-weight ratio</li>
<li>the ethical advantages of field harvesting.</li>
</ul>
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<img alt="A purse made from kangaroo fur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395620/original/file-20210419-19-dldhji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The positive attributes of kangaroo products should be promoted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Kangaroos can benefit landholders in other ways. Their soft feet cause less damage to soils than hard-hooved introduced livestock. And farmers <a href="https://publications.rzsnsw.org.au/doi/pdf/10.7882/AZ.2018.043">could earn</a> carbon credits through better management of grazing pressures and substituting high-emission meat and leather for kangaroo alternatives.</p>
<p>We urge the federal government to show leadership and work with the states to improve kangaroo management. Doing so would seem a great project for the <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/ag-farm-food/drought/future-drought-fund">Future Drought Fund</a>.</p>
<p>A stronger kangaroo industry integrated with the other red meat industries, delivering high-value products, is possible. But the US bill is not the right way forward.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/riding-on-the-kangaroos-back-animal-skin-fashion-exports-and-ethical-trade-130207">Riding on the kangaroo's back: animal skin fashion, exports and ethical trade</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Wilson has nothing to disclose. He has funding from NSW Local Land Services, and from the Farming Together Program</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Read does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If a bill before the US Congress succeeds, it would further suppress global demand for kangaroo products and lead to more animal suffering, not less.George Wilson, Honorary Professor, Australian National UniversityJohn Read, Associate Lecturer, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302072020-01-30T03:52:00Z2020-01-30T03:52:00ZRiding on the kangaroo’s back: animal skin fashion, exports and ethical trade<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312689/original/file-20200129-154288-7a0rpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C53%2C5901%2C3296&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kangaroo skins are exported for use in football boots, motorcycle suits, fashion footwear and haute couture. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/v3v6uz-n-pQ">Carles Rabada/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Versace fashion house recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/15/versace-bans-kangaroo-skin-after-pressure-from-animal-activists">announced</a> it had stopped using kangaroo skins in its fashion collections after coming under pressure from animal rights group <a href="https://www.lav.it/en">LAV</a>. </p>
<p>Kangaroo meat and skin has an annual production <a href="http://www.kangarooindustry.com/industry/economic/">value</a> of around A$174 million, with skins used in the fashion and shoe manufacturing industries. </p>
<p>There are legitimate questions regarding the ethical manner in which kangaroos are killed. But Indigenous people have long utilised the skins of kangaroos and possums. Versace’s concerns may have been allayed by understanding more about our traditions and practices. </p>
<h2>Reviving skills</h2>
<p>There has always been concern around how native animals are treated while alive and how they are killed to cause as little distress, pain and suffering as possible. Campaigners say <a href="https://www.lav.it/en/news/australia-versace-kangaroos">2.3 million</a> kangaroos in Australia are hunted each year. Official <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/natives/wild-harvest/kangaroo-wallaby-statistics/kangaroo-2000">sources</a> cite this figure as the national quota, but put the number actually killed at around 1.7 million. </p>
<p>Australian Aboriginal people have for many thousands of years utilised native animals, predominantly kangaroos and possums. Consciously and sustainably, every part of the animal was used. The kangaroo meat was eaten, the skins used to make cloaks for wearing, teeth used to make needles, sinew from the tail used as thread. </p>
<p>The cloaks were incised with designs on the skin side significant to the wearer representing their totems, status and kinship. Cloaks were made for babies and added to as the child grew into adulthood, and people were buried in their <a href="https://www.nationalquiltregister.org.au/aboriginal-skin-cloaks/">cloaks</a> when they died. </p>
<p>Aboriginal women from New South Wales and Victoria have begun <a href="https://sydney.edu.au/museums/images/content/exhibitions-events/where-we-all-meet/djon-mundine-essay-sectioned.pdf">reviving</a> the tradition of kangaroo and possum skin cloak-making to pass down knowledge of this important practice to future generations. Interestingly, possum skins can only be purchased from New Zealand for these crafts. As an introduced species, they have wreaked havoc on NZ animal populations and the environment, but are a protected species in Australia. </p>
<h2>Culls and trade</h2>
<p>In Australia, kangaroos are not farmed but are harvested for meat and fur in the wild under a voluntary <a href="https://www.viva.org.uk/under-fire/cruelty-kangaroos">code of conduct</a>. The code is difficult to monitor and enforcement is <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/thinkk_production/resources/29/Kangaroo_Court_Enforcement_of_the_law_governing_commercial_kangaroo_killing_.pdf">complicated</a> by federal and state sharing of responsibility. This code is currently under <a href="https://www.agrifutures.com.au/kangaroo-commercial-code-review/">review</a>. </p>
<p>The export and import of wildlife is <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/natives">regulated</a> under Australia’s national environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 Act.</p>
<p>In practice, kangaroos are shot in the wild by professional licensed shooters with an intended single shot to the head to kill them quickly. </p>
<p>There are <a href="http://thinkkangaroos.uts.edu.au/issues/welfare-and-enforcement.html">concerns</a> over whether shooters should be trained better and whether nighttime shoots with poor visibility result in the killing of alpha males or mothers with joeys in their pouches. </p>
<p>If mothers are accidentally shot, the code dictates the joey should be shot too. Sometimes the shot does not kill them instantly and they are then clubbed over the head. Traditionally, Aboriginal people speared kangaroos. This was unlikely to kill them instantly, so they were swiftly killed with a blow to the head by a <em>boondi</em> (wooden club). </p>
<h2>Why kangaroo?</h2>
<p>Kangaroo skin is extremely strong and more flexible than other leathers, including cow hide. </p>
<p>It is routinely used in the production of soccer boots as they mould to the feet extremely well and don’t need to be worn in like harder leathers. This has led to an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-07-12/kangaroo-skin-hits-fashion-capitals/1799602">increase</a> in the use of kangaroo. </p>
<p>LAV <a href="https://www.lav.it/en/news/australian-fire-our-actions-to-save-animals">reports</a> Italy is the biggest importer of kangaroo leather in Europe, where it is used to produce soccer shoes and motorbike suits. They are <a href="https://www.lav.it/en/news/australian-fire-our-actions-to-save-animals">lobbying</a> brands Lotto and Dainese to stop using kangaroo, arguing that shooting animals is not sustainable given the estimated <a href="https://theconversation.com/bushfires-left-millions-of-animals-dead-we-should-use-them-not-just-bury-them-129787">1 billion</a> creatures killed in bushfires this season. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312688/original/file-20200129-154292-1cyrpg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animal rights groups want companies like Lotto to stop using kangaroo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/afife-portugal-january-12-2017-lotto-554372161">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In terms of environmental sustainability, kangaroos cause less damage to the environment than cattle. Cows contribute methane gas, their hard hooves destroy the earth, they eat the grass to a point that it does not regenerate. Kangaroos eat the grass leaving a small portion to re-flourish, they bounce across the land without causing damage to it, and don’t produce methane gases. </p>
<p>The use of kangaroo skins in fashion can be done ethically if the code is reviewed in consultation with Aboriginal people and enforced properly. The industry has the <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/EA03248">potential</a> to produce and support sustainable business opportunities for Aboriginal communities. </p>
<p>While celebrities are <a href="https://www.idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/fur/latest-news/kardashians-shamed-among-10-worst-celebrities-fur-animals/">shamed</a> for wearing fur fashion, this relates to the unregulated and inhumane treatment of coyotes, chinchillas, foxes, mink, rabbits, and other fur-bearing animals. In contrast, scientists <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/EA03248">consider</a> kangaroo harvest as “one of the few rural industry development options with potential to provide economic return with minimal environmental impact”. </p>
<h2>Only natural</h2>
<p>Versace, along with most fashion retailers across the high-end to ready-to-wear spectrum, use synthetic fibres in their fashion products. Such materials eventually <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-to-make-fast-fashion-a-problem-for-its-makers-not-charities-117977">cause more damage</a> to the environment than natural fibres and skins. They don’t biodegrade and many of these fibres end up in landfill, our oceans or in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749119348808">stomachs of fish</a>. </p>
<p>Animal skins will always be used in fashion and other products because of the unique properties the skins bring to design and function. </p>
<p>While the bushfires have killed millions of Australian native animals, kangaroo culls are managed to have limited impact on the population. </p>
<p>We should focus our energy on saving Australian native animals that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-bushfires-could-drive-more-than-700-animal-species-to-extinction-check-the-numbers-for-yourself-129773">close to extinction</a> and lobbying for a stricter ethical code for shooters that can be legally enforced to ensure kangaroos are killed humanely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130207/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Fabri Blacklock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pressure is mounting on fashion producers to stop using skins from Australian native animals. But Indigenous people are reviving traditions and there are ethical ways for trade to continue.Dr Fabri Blacklock, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021692018-08-30T18:54:22Z2018-08-30T18:54:22ZFriday essay: the art of the colonial kangaroo hunt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233995/original/file-20180829-86147-rn0p9a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865). Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia in the 1830s and 1840s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the beginnings of settler occupation in Australia, the kangaroo has been claimed at once as a national symbol and as a type of vermin to be destroyed en masse. In Kate Clere McIntyre and Michael McIntyre’s recent award-winning film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6674514/">Kangaroo: A Love Hate Story</a>, Sydney academic Peter Chen sums up this stark contradiction: “Kangaroos are wonderful, fuzzy, they’re maternal, and they’re also a pest that should be eliminated wholesale”.</p>
<p>The killing of kangaroos by Europeans began at exactly the same time that the species was first identified. Shooting, naming, describing, scientifically classifying, sketching, dissecting, eating: these things all played out simultaneously as soon as Cook’s <em>Endeavour</em> got stranded on a reef in far north Queensland in June and July 1770.</p>
<p>Lieutenant John Gore was the first to shoot a kangaroo; Cook noted that Aboriginal people called this animal “Kangooroo, or Kanguru”; the ship’s artist Sydney Parkinson produced two beautiful sketches of these creatures; and Joseph Banks went ashore to hunt with his greyhound and “dress’d” a kangaroo for his dinner.</p>
<p>Bits and pieces of dead kangaroos were shipped back to England, where Banks presented them to George Stubbs, an artist famous for his anatomical accuracy – and who had made his name as a painter of thoroughbred horses and hunting scenes. Stubbs worked with a stuffed or inflated pelt and drew on Parkinson’s sketches to produce the first painting of this newly-identified species, Portrait of the Kongouro from New Holland (1770).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233813/original/file-20180828-75978-1d2effe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Stubbs, Portrait of the Kongouro from New Holland (1770).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An engraving of this painting – with the kangaroo gazing back over its shoulder (curiously? Is someone pursuing it?) – was used to illustrate the bestselling 1773 publication of Cook’s journal. As Des Cowley and Brian Hubber <a href="http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-66/t1-g-t2.html">have noted</a>, further engravings were made, the image began to circulate, and soon “the kangaroo had entered the European popular imagination”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233814/original/file-20180828-75984-kdheo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo (c.1817).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The kangaroo hunt quickly became a recognisable genre in colonial Australian art. Joseph Lycett was transported to New South Wales in 1813, a convicted forger. His Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo (c. 1817) and Aborigines hunting kangaroos (1820) give us two early examples of “ethnographic” landscape painting where Aboriginal people hunt kangaroos in a fantasy precolonial space untouched by the impact of European settlement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233824/original/file-20180828-75972-1endte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Aborigines hunting kangaroos (1820)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other works, however, Lycett placed Aboriginal hunters alongside settlers as mutual participants in the developing social and economic life of the colony. In these early days of settlement, kangaroos were a vital food source. </p>
<p>Lycett’s Inner View of Newcastle (1818) depicts a settler, a convict and an Aboriginal man walking in single file with four kangaroo dogs (usually, greyhound, deerhound and wolfhound crossbreeds); the convict is carrying the carcass of a freshly killed kangaroo over his shoulder.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233815/original/file-20180828-75990-1cg8xyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Lycett, Inner View of Newcastle (1818).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Newcastle Art Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lycett’s View on the Wingeecarrabee River, New South Wales (1824) takes us down to the Southern Highlands, inland from Wollongong – where a settler with a musket, an Aboriginal man with a spear and two kangaroo dogs are all chasing down a single kangaroo.</p>
<p>Augustus Earle was a freelance professional artist who had travelled around the world – with Charles Darwin, among others. He spent two and a half years in Australia in the mid-1820s, chronicling metropolitan and bush scenes. His painting A Bivouac of Travellers in Australia in a Cabbage Tree Forest, Day Break (1827) gives us an idyllic scene of Aboriginal and settler companionship in the wake of a kangaroo hunt. </p>
<p>A group of settlers and two Aboriginal men are arranged around a campfire, waking up, preparing breakfast, and tending to a horse. There are two kangaroo dogs curled up and sleeping, and in the foreground of the painting – in the shadows, lying beside a rifle – is a large, dead kangaroo.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233816/original/file-20180828-75999-oq5q7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Augustus Earle, A Bivouac of Travellers in Australia in a Cabbage Tree Forest, Day Break (1827).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hunting clubs</h2>
<p>S. T. Gill is probably the best known local artist to represent the kangaroo hunt as an organized recreational event. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia in the 1830s and 1840s; the first “meet” in Victoria, for example, was in 1839, organized near Geelong by the Indian-born military officer and pastoralist William Mercer. Squatters bred packs of hounds and wealthy locals and visiting dignitaries would be invited to join in the hunt and all the social occasions that went with it.</p>
<p><a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fyans-foster-2075">Foster Fyans</a> was the Police Magistrate of Geelong and helped to oversee the dispossession of Aboriginal people across the western district frontier. “A noble pack of hounds was kept up by gentlemen squatters who met every season”, he recalled much later on, “hunting twice and thrice a week, and meeting at each other’s houses, where good cheer and good and happy society were ever to be met”.</p>
<p>Kangaroo hunting helped to consolidate squatter power and influence, lending it an available rhetoric of pleasure and merriment. No longer dependent on the kangaroo as a source of food, landowning colonists soon learned how to enjoy the thrill of the chase and the kill for its own sake, as a blood sport that came to define their social world.</p>
<p>Gill was a prolific chronicler of colonial life; his Australian Sketchbook (1865) included one scene, Kangaroo Stalking, in which a settler with a gun and an Aboriginal man hunt kangaroos together. In 1858 he produced a series of three lithographs under the general title Kangaroo Hunting. The first, The Meet, shows a gathering of men outside a rustic colonial homestead, with their horses and dogs (and some chickens; and a magpie on the roof). One of them has the conspicuous trappings of a wealthy squatter, tall, commanding, elaborately styled in black riding boots, yellow waistcoat, and scarlet jacket.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233818/original/file-20180828-75984-1ol7580.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Meet, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second, The Chase, puts the squatter into the foreground, leaping over a fallen log on his powerful white horse. The reckless excitement of the hunt is obvious as the settlers gallop across the dangerous terrain, whips raised. The dogs are chasing a kangaroo, which is retreating into the distance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233817/original/file-20180828-75984-1ape3q7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill Kangaroo Huntin, The Chase, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the third lithograph, The Death, seals the animal’s fate. A squatter stands beside his exhausted hounds as a hunter readies his knife to take the dead kangaroo’s tail. Another hunter lifts his hat, looking back; perhaps he is greeting a group of Aboriginal people who are approaching in the background. The leader of this group – a family? – is carrying a spear; he may also be returning from a hunt. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233826/original/file-20180828-75975-o715p0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no sense of impending frontier violence here, but the lithograph does seem to register the differences between settler and Aboriginal relationships to the body of the dead kangaroo: who claims possession of it, and for what purpose.</p>
<h2>Settler triumph</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233994/original/file-20180829-86129-1hz81bo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Charles Darwin in the 1830s by George Richmond: he tried his hand at kangaroo hunting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many notable visitors participated in organized kangaroo hunts: Charles Darwin in 1836 (“my usual ill-fortune in sporting followed us”), Britain’s Admiral of the Fleet Henry Keppel in 1850, the novelist Anthony Trollope in 1871. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233834/original/file-20180828-75990-wdq0tg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, shot about 30 kangaroos trapped in a yard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Duke of Edinburgh came to the colonies in 1867 – <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/edinburgh-duke-of-3467">the first royal visit</a> – hunting kangaroo in South Australia and then travelling out to Victoria’s western district for more sport.</p>
<p>The Russian-born colonial artist Nicholas Chevalier accompanied him on tour, staying at the squatter John Moffat’s luxurious homestead Chatsworth House at Hopkins Hill, where he sketched a number of hunting scenes. The Duke himself shot at close range over 30 kangaroos trapped in a yard; he got the locals to preserve the skins and claws.</p>
<p>A few years earlier, Chevalier had joined an expedition to the Grampians, producing two significant landscapes. <a href="http://www.hamiltongallery.org/collection/detail.asp?Artist_LastName=c&Artist_Name=Nicholas+Chevalier&AccNumber=2004.058">Mount Abrupt</a> (1864) shows an Aboriginal family peacefully camping on a plateau above a gully, with cattle grazing on the pastures behind and the mountain in the background. This family is not (yet) dispossessed from what is clearly settler property.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234026/original/file-20180829-195301-qkbpcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicholas Chevalier, Mount Abrupt (1864).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hamilton Art Gallery, purchased by Hamilton Art Gallery Trust Fund - M.L Foster Endowment with assistance from the Friends of Hamilton Art Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mount Abrupt and The Grampians – produced the same year and published as a lithograph in Charles Troedel’s The Melbourne Album – gives us the same perspective of this mountain. But now there is no Aboriginal family. Instead, a group of settler hunters and their hounds ride roughshod over the place this family had once occupied, chasing kangaroos. It is as if the hunt itself has erased any trace of Aboriginal occupation of land. Its depiction is an expression of settler triumph over both native species (the kangaroo will surely be killed) and Indigeneity (Aboriginal people have been dispossessed).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233829/original/file-20180828-75984-ekt33l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicholas Chevalier, Mount Abrupt and The Grampians (1864).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Godfrey Mundy was another officer who had served in colonial India. He came to Australia in 1846, where he held a senior role in colonial military administration. He was also the cousin of Sir Charles Fitzroy, who by this time was Governor of New South Wales. Together, they went across the Blue Mountains on a month-long journey that became the basis for Mundy’s bestselling diary and narrative of colonial development, Our Antipodes (1852).</p>
<p>Mundy also illustrated his book; one of the illustrations is titled Hunting the Kangaroo. Here, two hunters are in hot pursuit of a kangaroo, with their hounds leading the way. One of the hounds has the kangaroo by the throat; the other lies injured at its feet. Interestingly, Mundy depicts himself as one of the hunters, with his initials “G.M.” branded on the shoulder of one of the horses.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233831/original/file-20180828-75975-1j4qvjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Godfrey Mundy, Hunting the Kangaroo (1852).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Our Antipodes.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On 30 November 1846, Mundy writes, “the resident gentlemen of the vicinity…attempt to show [us] the sport, par excellence, of the country”. But they find only one kangaroo, which eludes them. The landscape makes the kangaroo hunt difficult and dangerous, with uneven ground, tree stumps, and so on. Mundy rides “at full speed into the fork of a fallen tree” and has to “retreat”. But in his sketch, he is still proudly mounted on his horse and in full pursuit; and the kangaroo is about to die. This is the kangaroo hunt sketch as wish-fulfilment, a fantasy conclusion.</p>
<h2>Sympathy for the kangaroo</h2>
<p>Edward Roper was a keen naturalist and artist who travelled around the world, coming to Australia in 1857. His landscape A Kangaroo Hunt under Mount Zero, the Grampians (1880) has four hunters galloping through a woodland of eucalypts and grass trees, chasing three kangaroos. A long brushwood fence separates the hunters from their quarry. The riders and their hounds are approaching the fence at break-neck speed, highlighting the thrills and dangers of the chase; this is their land now, and they ride across it as a post-frontier expression of settler freedom and exhilaration.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233830/original/file-20180828-75978-1u4vii6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Roper, A Kangaroo Hunt under Mount Zero, the Grampians (1880).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roper’s <a href="https://benallacollectionlab.com/2018/02/18/edward-roper/">After the Flying Doe</a> gives us a similar scene, although with a closer view of everything including Mount Zero, which now looms large in the background. There is no fence in this version: two hunters on horseback are pursuing kangaroos, with a couple of hounds racing along in front.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233823/original/file-20180828-75993-10hcrmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Roper, After the Flying Doe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benalla Art Gallery. Source: Ledger Gift, 1985.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unusually, the kangaroos themselves are in the foreground of the painting. The “doe’s” femininity is apparent in the delicate representation of her features, and possibly there is a joey peeking from her pouch. It looks like this painting wants to invite some sympathy for the female kangaroo’s plight by placing her in the foreground, emphasizing her gender and invoking her directly in the title.</p>
<p>What happens when male hunters kill a female kangaroo? “Colonial Hunt” is the first poem published in Australia on an Australian topic; it appeared in the Sydney Gazette in June 1805. Here, a female kangaroo (“Kanguroo”) is pursued and trapped by a hunter and his dog. “Fatigu’d, broken hearted, tears gush from her eyes”, the poet writes, as she realizes her fate.</p>
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<p>The kangaroo that weeps when it dies offers a rare moment of sentimental identification with a native species that by 1805 is already a target for extermination. We don’t see kangaroo tears again until Ethel C. Pedley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6434489-dot-and-the-kangaroo">Dot and the Kangaroo</a> (1902). In this famous children’s story, a female kangaroo’s sadness over the ecological toll of settlement is now shared by all native species: “Every creature in the bush weeps”, she says, “that they should have come to take the beautiful bush away from us”.</p>
<p>Organised hunts could kill any number of kangaroos; alongside hunting meets that pursued individual roos as game, squatters also organised large scale drives or battues, which could see thousands of kangaroos rounded up, slaughtered and left to rot. </p>
<p>Kangaroos are no longer hunted on horseback, of course. But small - and large -scale killing continues unabated. Recently, the New South Wales government <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-08-08/kangaroo-protections-relaxed-by-nsw-in-100pc-drought-conditions/10088614">relaxed kangaroo culling licences</a>, consistent with the view of the kangaroo as a “pest” that competes with livestock for survival in drought conditions. If we add this to that government’s plan to expand and intensify forest logging, it’s easy to sympathise with the kangaroo’s complaint in Pedley’s turn-of-the century fantasy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Gelder receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Weaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In the mid 19th century, kangaroo hunting was a sport. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia and everyone from Charles Darwin to Anthony Trollope tried their hand at shooting roos.Ken Gelder, Professor of English, The University of MelbourneRachael Weaver, ARC Senior Research Fellow in English, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.