The images in the following
program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they
were to us. However, we have to show the truth of animal cruelty. John Brumpton (m): Just
got harder and harder to pull the trigger… Wish I could go to the
doctor and get an anti-memory injection, you know to help me forget……
but there’s a part of me that wants to remember…. because I am
responsible…
HOST: Every year, millions of gentle and amiable
kangaroos are hunted down and brutally killed across Australia. Their
screams of agony fill the arid desert air as innocent blood stains the
plains of the Australian outback.
It is the largest human
massacre of terrestrial wildlife on the planet. On this edition of the
Stop Animal Cruelty series,we examine the violent slaughter of
Australia’s national icon.
The heartless culling program for
this gentle marsupial is murder on an enormous scale. In 2008, the
government set the commercial quota for this so-called “kangaroo
harvesting” at a staggering 3.6 million kangaroos.
Kangaroo meat is sold as pet food and for human consumption, while the skin may be made into leather clothing or footwear.
Rosemary (f): So
if you go out there and drive through the Australian countryside, it's
quite likely that you will rarely see a kangaroo. In fact, a recent
study has shown that, at the current slaughter rates in New South Wales
they'll be extinct by 2010. That's at the current slaughter rates.
HOST:
Fiona Corke, an Australian actress best known for appearing in the
popular Australian television soap opera “Neighbours,” is a passionate
advocate for the rights of native wildlife.
She wrote and directed
a six-minute film entitled “WOUNDEAD,” which has been described as “a
journey into the psychological torment of an ex-commercial kangaroo
shooter.”
WOUNDEAD is based upon Ms. Corke’s conversations with both current and former shooters about their bloody profession.