Could NMIT provide a model of kangaroo conservation management and sustainable harvesting? Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) is in financial trouble and needs to innovate and focus on it's educational strengths. I outline one modest innovative proposal which utilises the expertise from several academic and vocational disciplines and could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions for climate mitigation through conservation management, while utilising our unique Australian food resources for a more healthy lifestyle.
The issue of how we deal with our native fauna, particularly kangaroos, has been raised by the announcement on 19 March 2014 by the Victorian Minister for Agriculture Peter Walsh that kangaroos culled under Wildlife control permits in certain areas of the state will now be supplied to the commercial pet food market. Formerly, kangaroos shot had to be buried by landowners.
Some animal welfare activists and conservationists have criticised the measure, and queried the ethical necessity for animal culls, even raising that this may impinge on the income of traditional beef and sheep farming.(Barber 2014) Over recent decades animal welfare and prevention of cruelty to animals have become important public debates. Standards for ethical treatment of animals - both wild and domesticated - have increased due to this debate, as exemplified in the public sentiment expressed over the live animal export trade.
