Sharing Skippy: how can landholders be involved in kangaroo production in Australia?

Abstract

For 2 decades, calls for Australian rangeland landholders to expand their reliance on the abundant species of native kangaroos and decrease their reliance on introduced stock have been made. These calls have received recent impetus from the challenge of climate change. Arguments for landholder involvement in kangaroo production include reduced greenhouse gas emissions, better management of total grazing pressure, reduced land degradation, improved vegetation and biodiversity outcomes, and greater valuation of kangaroos by landholders. However, there is little understanding of how landholders could be involved in kangaroo harvest and production, and there is a widespread misconception that this would include domestication, fencing, mustering and trucking. This paper reviews the options for landholder involvement in managing and harvesting wild kangaroos, and assesses the possible benefits and feasibility of such options. We conclude that collaboration among landholders, as well as between landholders and harvesters, forms the basis of any preferred option, and set out a proposed operating model based on the formation of a kangaroo management, processing and marketing co-operative.