Known as the "Bush Capital", Canberra has many nature reserves, but the present Legislative Assembly approved the slaughter - during June 2012 - of 2,000 kangaroos on these reserves. Although the government-ordered slaughter has now ended for this year, the government fell short of its quota, with 'only' 1,154 killed, and has threatened to raise the quota for next season to make up for the shortfall. However, the joeys aren't counted in this number - as if they don't 'count' or matter - so we'll never know how many babies were murdered - by decapitation, bashed in heads - and other brutality - as the officially approved method. I have several soul-destroying photos of the killing fields' burial pits filled up with adult kangaroos and tiny joeys. The photos - including the one above - and the following description of events from those in the field were what drove me to start this petition.
“Unearthing the slaughter in Canberra, June 3rd: In the early hours of Sunday morning, activists uncovered a large mass burial pit at the Kama Nature reserve containing an estimated 300 or more slain kangaroo bodies. Evidence was discovered amidst a slurry of mud and blood, illustrating unethical and illegal practices including throat shots, partially severed joeys and mature kangaroos with smashed heads. Amidst the twisted pile of discarded iconic Australians, a mature buck stands amongst his once proud mob – gunned down by faceless ignorance in Australia’s Capital.”
Something has to be done: Although the killing is done for now, we need to save the surviving kangaroos from their systematic, ongoing extermination, not only in Canberra, but all over Australia. I had a chilling comment from an Englishman who had just returned from a round-trip of Australia:
"I have just got back from Oz. I went to Perth, then rail to Adelaide; then rail to Darwin, then air to Cairns. Then rail to Brisbane, then air to Perth, then road to Margaret River. So I know where things have gone wrong because in all that time – from dawn till dusk - I never saw one living Kangaroo in the wild."
Rationalism is Obsolete: We won't find solutions using the same old arguments. We need to change tack by developing a new way of thinking - a "whole-brain" way - that puts problems into context, and enables a proper perspective, which in turn gives insight into the hidden qualitative factors needed to match the outer quantitative facts. Basing solutions on surface 'facts' alone never solves anything; rather, it usually creates more problems. In fact, facts or 'proofs' can be, and are, manipulated to fit any situation or problem that needs resolution. The kangaroo "problem" needs to be put into the greater context of the evolutionary 'web of life' - which is beyond the jurisdiction of quantitative science and rational logic - in order to gain the correct perspective for resolution.
Context - the Bigger Picture: Einstein has been oft-quoted as saying that we can't solve problems with the same thinking that created them. Thus, if we are to solve the multifarious problems caused by our present materialistic rational thinking (both locally and globally), it is necessary to start developing the other half of our brain; the much-maligned "right-brain", which can perceive the qualitative living aspect of reality. This is the 'different thinking' that can solve the problems caused by our quantitative prejudice against life. The kangaroo 'problem' cannot be solved out of context with the 'whole' - the ecological web-of-life - of which it is an integral part.
Putting Things into Perspective: We urgently need to look beyond the surface effects of our problems (which are easily misinterpreted) to the true causes of things. As I see it, the real "problem" with the kangaroos has been caused by poor town planning (this is a global problem, not just with Canberra's planning), which does not (cannot) take natural laws into account. Thus planners design and build arterial roads that look good on paper, but cut through kangaroo habitat, and break up their territories into pockets. These pockets are then neatly labeled as "nature reserves". The kangaroos must now cross these freeways in order to move through their natural habitat - as they have for untold aeons - with resultant devastating road carnage. The 'cull' is all about eliminating the kangaroos to stop the inconvenience and cost of the road accidents they 'cause', and their inconvenient obstruction of urban development, which in fact is under construction in previous "cull' zones. It's a typical case of the "blame the victim" syndrome. So much for the government's main argument that kangaroos are damaging the ecology; we need transparency from the government on this issue.
The Law of Sustainability - a "Right-brain' Perspective: The interconnected, interdependent, multidimensional, evolutionary, web-of-life only functions when things are in their rightful place. Placing of the parts is intrinsic to the function of the whole. This is a fundamental law of sustainability that is universally applicable. For example, if a heart transplant recipient was given a liver instead of a heart, the recipient would die because it's not the liver's place to function as a heart; or, if we pull a bicycle apart and then put the seat where the front wheel goes when we reassemble it, the bike won't function. Likewise, ecological sustainability depends upon its parts being in place. Displacing kangaroos has global ramifications. Seen in the context of ecological interconnectedness, the kangaroo cull is contributing to evolutionary meltdown. What is it they say about the fluttering of a butterfly's wings reverberating through the universe?
All Things are Connected: But "left-brain" science doesn't have the faculty to make that connection. It relates purely to its own abstraction, which it "proves" quantitatively, using its proofs to rationalize its decisions and applications. Science must relate to living reality, not abstraction; and the "right-brain" has the faculty to do so.
The Law of Sustainability and Climate Change: Human beings are causing massive global displacement of habitat and species, and destroying the interconnectedness of life that has been sustained for billions of years before Homo sapiens even existed. This lawless displacement is also the true cause of climate change, because changes in microclimates through displacement aggregate into changes in the macroclimate. Canberra's microclimate changed after the artificial lake was made. I know this, because I've witnessed the weather in Canberra since 1949.
But climate change is only a symptom of the evolutionary meltdown now occurring because of human ignorance of the interactive causal dynamics of life. Science arrogantly denies these causal dynamics of living reality because it can't quantify them; so not only does science deny life any value (by default), it also justifies not having to be accountable to living evolution - or sentient wildlife. To our exclusive "left-brain" science, only matter matters; only the quantitative is "true". If humanity wants to survive as a species, it must learn how to design (especially "left-brain" town planners) and live in harmony with natural laws of sustainability - such as the law of place - before it's too late.
Stop the Slaughter of Kangaroos in ACT
Recently 1,154 kangaroos were slaughtered on Canberra's nature reserves, but their mutilated joeys weren't counted, so in fact many more kangaroos died.
Kangaroos are an intrinsic part of the local ecosystem and they have been sustainable within their habitat for untold aeons before human habitation. They certainly know better than the quantitative 'experts' on matters of qualitative sustainable ecological management. Kangaroos regulate their own numbers according to conditions in their local habitat, unlike human beings who are urbanizing the kangaroos’ natural habitat, without any developmental or infrastructural planning accountability, or due consideration given to their habitual movements, such as the planning and allowance for perpetual corridors across which no roads can ever be constructed.
There must be a distinction made between introduced species (plant and animal) and native wildlife. Kangaroos are not, and never can be, pests in their own native habitat.
I join with many others in protest of this uncalled-for violence against our native kangaroos in reserves that are supposed to protect them. I also protest the lack of morality as a factor in the decision to kill innocent sentient animals and destroy their families.
The ACT Legislative Assembly cannot justify its slaughter of indigenous wildlife and it must listen, not only to Australians, but also to those people worldwide, who insist that the Legislative Assembly stop its unwarranted annual "cull" of our unique and gentle kangaroos.
Hundreds of overseas signatories have registered their disgust that Australia has no regard for its Coat of Arms emblem. The annual kangaroo cull is damaging Australia's reputation, and is hypocritical in the face of the latest tourism promotions featuring kangaroos.
I respectfully urge the Legislative Assembly to ban the kangaroo cull permanently, and to look to its own culpability in its mismanagement of urban planning and development that has caused this problem in the first place, by denying accountability for the rights of wildlife to a fair go.