ABOUT

Victorian Kangaroo Alliance is a network of advocates from all walks of life who are committed to fighting against the persecution and exploitation of Victorian kangaroos.

Our work is based around three main campaign pillars - that the current treatment of kangaroos is unethical, unsustainable and unhygienic. We target both the Victorian commercial kangaroo industry, part of the world's largest land-based wildlife trade, and the non-commercial slaughter of kangaroos for convenience. We seek to achieve better protection for kangaroos by pressuring the government for legislative change, and by raising public awareness to reduce consumer demand for kangaroo products. We encourage and support communities to defend their local mobs, and promote harmonious interactions.

Victorian Kangaroo Alliance emerged out of two long and difficult kangaroo campaigns in Melbourne’s outer east. We initially created Save the Kinley Kangas in mid-2020 to prevent the shooting of a small mob trapped in the Kinley Development in Lilydale under an 'Authority to Control Wildlife Permit'. As the Kinley campaign was unfolding, we were approached with the urgent news that 250 kangaroos were to be killed under the commercial 'Kangaroo Harvesting Program' at the Heritage Golf and Country Club in Chirnside Park. Both campaigns proved arduous and fraught with issues, but we are so proud of the community effort that saved so many lives of these beloved local kangaroos.

We then joined forces with kangaroo advocates in regional Victoria to fight the proposed Inglewood kangaroo processing facility that would increase demand for bodies from 1000-5000 per week. Fortunately, the facility was rejected as inappropriate in a Rural Living Zone.

As our work had formed an amazing network of allies across Victoria (and beyond!) we decided to rebrand as Victorian Kangaroo Alliance in October 2021 to argue the broader issues facing Victoria's kangaroos.

• Oppose the exploitation and persecution of kangaroos 
• Increase public awareness of the plight of kangaroos
• Promote harmonious interactions with kangaroos 
• Support the improvement of legislative protection for kangaroos
• Provide a platform for immediate action
• Facilitate rapid mobilisation in opposition to threats against kangaroos 
• Provide support to communities to run their own kangaroo protection campaigns

• We are not a wildlife rescue/care organisation
• We do not take on campaigns outside of Victoria - but can support and promote other campaigns

Victorian kangaroos are in crisis. Average quotas have tripled, communities are outraged, rescuers are traumatised and shooters are desperately soliciting for dwindling kangaroos. 

With the onset of the Kangaroo Pet Food Trial in 2014, then Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh told Victorians commercialising kangaroo shooting ‘‘will not mean any increase in the wildlife control permits at all, it is just utilising the waste that is there from the current controls”. However, average quotas have since more than tripled. It was flagged in the Kangaroo Pet Food Trial Evaluation Report (2018)  that commercialisation risks sustainability and breeds corruption, yet this warning was brazenly ignored by Victorian Labor. Victorian Labor launched the Kangaroo Harvesting Program, removed the need for landholder permits and opened nearly the whole state to ‘harvesting’. 

Commercial quotas continue to increase and the industry is trying to expand. Consequently, we are facing a kangaroo crisis. This unsustainable industry is sweeping across Victoria decimating kangaroo populations in its wake. Wildlife volunteers are called to horrifically wounded kangaroos, community members are expressing concern to Victorian Kangaroo Alliance about disappearing kangaroos, and profiteering shooters are increasingly desperate to find kangaroos.

Not only are there reports of shooters leafleting and door-knocking, they are soliciting widely across community Facebook groups in a bid to find scarce kangaroos. Hundreds of posts have been found across Facebook community groups across the state. 

Recently, independent biostatistician Claire Galea has released a damning critique of the flawed kangaroo counting processes that are putting Victorian kangaroos at grave risk.

1. Immediately cease the commercial kangaroo industry.   
2. Immediately cease approval of unregulated kangaroo killing under the ATCW system.  
3. Urgently follow the NSW example and conduct a thorough inquiry into the wellbeing of macropods in Victoria.  
4. Produce legislation to prohibit deliberate harm to macropods and increase penalties for those inflicting cruelty on wildlife.  
5. Promote progressive and respectful cohabitation with kangaroos.   
6. Invest in the development and implementation of non-lethal solutions to help landholders coexist with wildlife.   
7. Commission wildlife overpasses (or underpasses) and virtual fencing.  
8. Consider kangaroos when approving new developments, ensuring there is adequate habitat, wildlife corridors and protections from roads and disturbances.
9. Invest in infrastructure for sustainable and lucrative eco-tourism.  
10. Support wildlife volunteers.  

We are in the middle of a sixth mass extinction and biodiversity crisis with wildlife making up only four percent of the world’s mammals. Now is the time for Labor to start conserving our unique and iconic kangaroos and treating them with the respect they deserve.