to kill or not to cull

To kill or not to Cull

We went camping this week, just a few well needed down time days in a beautiful national park 30 minutes away from home…we had ocean views, big surf, serene Lake fishing, good old Aussie bush, a spectacular Full Moon, atmospheric campfire and wildlife! The wildlife was particularly endearing…( I for one have missed the constant presence of native animals that we had the good fortune to experience for many years in Lillian rock just outside of Nimbin)…’I’m Busy’ was a little non-plussed however when she found a very tall and muscular Kangaroo guarding the kindly provided drop toilets…it was enough to make her want to pee…or actually not!! We had a friendly visit from a bandicoot during the night too who was very impressed with our food selection…and how easy it apparently was to open plastic containers these days???

Anyway, driving back home I was in pensive mood and couldn’t help noticing the dead animal carcasses lying on the side of the road, here and there….each one made me a little sadder….I know it is sometimes hard to avoid the startled no brain activities of a Wallaby, Kangaroo etc. when faced with the lights and noise of a car…how they have a thing for running down the centre of a road… I do not blame the genuine accident…but I am sure that not all are genuine accidents??.(..we have some in our lucky country who believe Kangaroos and Wallabies make great sport…) and I wonder how many of those who accidentally ran over these poor creatures actually stopped and did all they could to help, if they found the animal still alive, or gently pulled the dead animal off the road and honoured it with a prayer, mantra or kind thought…???

So it was in this frame of mind that I was watching the evening news on the same day and saw this: ‘A CONTROVERSIAL cull of kangaroos in Canberra will not damage Australia's image overseas, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith believes.’ This in response to The Department of Defense yesterday culling about 400 kangaroos on land it owns in northern Canberra.
It made me think…certainly there are reasons, there is scientific evidence that this is necessary…but it sparked that old question of mine about the value of things…and why we presume to judge on this so easily… on news.com.au I found this:
‘Culls have occurred in the past in Australia, they may well occur in the future. And the scientific and public policy assessment will stand and fall on its merits."
Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the cull was the humane and the right thing to do.
"As a regrettable last option, these kinds of actions have to be taken. While no one wanted to see wildlife harmed, where large populations of kangaroos were "eating out" the grasslands and putting other species at risk, a cull was appropriate.
"You have to look at other species that are being affected by those kangaroos," Mr Garrett said.’

I suppose that is a reasonable argument…but what if we got down off our high horse and applied the argument to humans… we certainly can be accused of ‘eating out’ natural resources and effecting other species by this…gosh I think we also effect our own species…lets see what about the tree felling in say Africa and the unnatural effect this has had (Mount Kilimanjaro is drying up for example. Climate change, coupled with widespread deforestation of the slopes, is melting the ice and snow that has crowned Africa's highest peak for more than 11,000 years, dramatically altering the surrounding ecosystem. Scientists warn that most of the glaciers may be gone by 2020,) or the forests destroyed and animals affected so we can build more houses and the necessary infrastructure that goes with it all (Land clearing and housing development affect both the size of habitat and the availability of appropriate food tree species for koalas. Koalas come to ground to move between trees, and many are killed by dogs. Roads often dissect koala habitat, and numerous koala injuries and deaths are caused by cars. )…..or the farm lands ( cash crops ) that eat out all the goodness of the soil and have to be left because they are no use to anyone ( land degradation by lack of crop diversity. ) …or the very unnatural animals like cows that we farm for beef and milk that erode our sensitive earth here in Australia and lose us copious amounts of soil each year……even Global warming is caused by increased atmospheric levels of so-called 'greenhouse gasses', such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. It is Industrialization and human activity again - including the burning of oil, gasoline and coal – that push the concentration of these gasses to artificially high levels.Could we say that a regrettable last option then would be to cull these humans that put other species and even themselves at risk? After all didn’t Mr Garret say ‘You have to look at other species that are being affected…’hmmmm

So imagine a human hit and run…dead carcasses lying unceremoniously on the side of the road getting stiff and smelly in the sun, picked upon by crows and the odd magpie… all in the natural selection hierarchy of things…scavengers got to eat too!! And no need to check if that bump you hit as you were driving home in your fuel burning car haplessly creating a hole in the ozone, is alive, dead, or your next door neighbour….( there’s too many of those humans anyhow)
I guess nature has a way of doing her own culling, what with the disasters that have recently racked Myanmar and China…nature is not remiss in lumping us living things all together…all one, all living on the same planet.

If you stop a while and review the state of things you might find yourself in a quandary hey??? What about rabbits and the myxomatosis cull a while back…I remember being a small child and asking what was wrong with the rabbit we found on the side of the road in obvious pain…and if we could help it …only to be told no. we could not help it, this disease that slowly killed the poor rabbit was given to it on purpose by the people I thought I was meant to look up to, the adults. Sure there were too many rabbits, but whose fault is that….humans again…sure there are too many Kangaroos and not enough food to go round the wildlife sector, but whose fault is that…the humans….sure cane toads are a menace and killing other species, but whose fault is that…the humans…oh my God the list is endless….so in line with Mr Garrets words….’you have to look at other species that are being affected…’ (Unfortunately by the species who propose to judge enough to effect a cull…) then what should we do with humans???

In that news story is also a question of our country’s hypocrisy, ‘The cull has attracted international criticism from animal rights groups and some believe it makes Australia's anti-whaling stance seem hypocritical.’ I think we humans have gone way beyond that, too far to be asking questions about hypocrisy…too far to go back…in the end it is we who are running scared down the middle of the road, phased by the lights and the noise no longer knowing where the path to home is….