Professor Sarah Legge

 

 

Re. Review of the Eastern Grey Kangaroo - Controlled Native Species Management Plan

Friends of Grasslands (FOG) is a community group dedicated to the conservation of natural temperate grassy ecosystems in south-eastern Australia. FOG advocates, educates and advises on matters to do with the conservation of native grassy ecosystems, and carries out surveys and other on-ground work. FOG is based in Canberra and its members include professional scientists, landowners, land managers and interested members of the public.

Thank you for the opportunity for two of our members of Friends of Grasslands, Geoff Robertson and Michael Mulvaney, to attend the stakeholder consultation session in December 2023. They reported back that many groups understand the requirements to manage the impacts of high grazing of kangaroos.

Further to that opportunity, I submit this further correspondence.

Friends of Grasslands, together with the Conservation Council ACT Region have prepared, and are endeavouring to have implemented, a proposal to create a Biodiversity Network across the ACT ^[1]. The major issues raised in the paper are that all sites of conservation value, regardless of tenure, require management to maintain and improve their condition, protection and restoration of key corridors. The key component to this is to manage the landscape rather than each separate parcel of land according to tenure.

The number of kangaroos that are culled or killed each year is an indication of the high numbers that occur across the ACT and the impact (beneficial and detrimental) they have on grassy ecosystems. Kangaroo management is clearly an important part of overall management of grassy ecosystems. 

We therefore urge the management of kangaroos (or rather, management of the herbage mass that they take off) is planned across landscapes, as a part of an overall plan of management of all values, including biodiversity, rural production, maintenance of infrastructure etc. All landholders should be involved, including rural and urban lessees, managers of infrastructure and Commonwealth landholders to determine the major elements in that landscape that are to be managed for, and the role of kangaroos in achieving those outcomes. We also hope that improvement in the condition and connectivity of vegetated corridors will be most especially beneficial for the movement of native fauna including kangaroos.

As you have identified, a better understanding of changes in biodiversity condition of the landscape as a result of kangaroo culling is required, together with improved communications around the benefits of the culls to biodiversity and other relevant outcomes.

Areas within the ACT that we believe should be given a high priority for across tenure management of biomass (including kangaroo management) are the Jerrabomberra and Majura Valleys, given the severely depleted populations of several grassland threatened species that are dependent on optimal levels of herbage mass. Other areas for priority consideration are where kangaroo populations are physically enclosed, such as the Lawson Grasslands (managed by Department of Defence), or effectively enclosed through fragmentation, such as Amtech grassland in Fyshwick.

Yours sincerely

 

Sarah Sharp
Vice President, Friends of Grasslands
29 January 2024

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[1] Conservation Council ACT Region and Friends of Grasslands, 2022. Building a Biodiversity Network Across the ACT. Briefing paper.