Playing GOD !?!

This week, 400 of around 600 kangaroos on the outskirts of the city of Canberra, Australia are being killed by lethal injection. Their crime? Living and thriving.

According to officials, this part of Australia has (or had) three times as many kangaroos as human inhabitants. They say the iconic down-under animals have overgrazed grasslands and put other species in jeopardy. These include the Golden Sun Moth and the Grassland Earless Dragon, one of the world's rarest lizards.

Grassland Earless Dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla)

Resettlement had been considered for the kangaroos, but that was deemed too expensive and too risky, since the marsupials could multiply elsewhere, they said.

Come to think about it, kangaroos aren't the only ones to blame. Studies indicate the worst drought to hit Australia in a century has changed the region, leaving grasslands dry, bare and scarred. Australian Aborigines also used to inhabit the land and were sensitive to ecosystem sustainability issues. Now urbanization and intensive agricultural practices have fragmented the landscape and changed natural water distribution patterns.

Kangaroos are smart and fairly adaptable in their native environment. Like pigeons, they can coexist in areas of high development, taking advantage of human-made food and water sources, such as those set out for farm animals.

Kangaroos grazing at a military site in Canberra.

I honestly wish city officials in Oz would put more effort into developing an effective birth control method for the kangaroos. Someone there apparently had that bright idea but it needs further development, in my opinion. While even that option is risky and rather invasive, I think it beats cutting the lives short of so many innocent creatures. It looks like most researchers support the kangaroo killing, however, to save the other threatened species.