RAA stats show rising animal collisions prompting call for roo cull in South Australia's South East
KANGAROOS are causing serious dangers for motorists according to new figures, but despite the new evidence one region is repeatedly ignored when it comes to a cull of its population.
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MOTORIST and animal collisions have soared by 40 per cent over the past three years, prompting a country mayor to plead for a kangaroo cull in his region.
The latest RAA statistics showed animal collisions had jumped from 850 to more than 1300 claims a year — with more than 60 per cent of crashes involving kangaroos.
The Environment Department this year will allow about 760,000 of the native animals to be commercially harvested, but none will be eradicated from the South East.
The region has also been excluded each year from the annual aerial count to gauge the state’s kangaroo population, which last year showed 4.6 million animals.
Grant District Mayor Richard Sage could not fathom why the region was ignored, as kangaroos caused a serious danger on rural roads and had ruined farming vegetation.
“The South East is continually missed off the proposal for kangaroo culling and has been for a number of years, and we would like to see it used,” Mr Sage said.
“We have 500 trucks travelling to Portland each day and the number of kangaroos on the road is unbelievable and farmers can’t graze their paddocks because of damage to vegetation.
“In some cases you could nearly put a fatality down to a kangaroo collision or swerving to try and avoid one.”
The South East recorded 201 motorist and animal collisions in 2011-15 — about 13 per cent of animal crashes across the state — according to the latest RAA statistics.
During the same period, 188 casualty crashes — requiring medical treatment — were caused by animals in SA, resulting in 35 serious injuries and four deaths.
An Environment Department spokeswoman said a kangaroo harvest trial in the Upper South East in 2012-14, which excluded Grant District Council, showed it was “non-viable for the industry for economic reasons”.
“At the time the commercial harvest program was established it was recognised that shooting kangaroos commercially in ‘close country’ where the landscape has been substantially altered and contains livestock, roads, and buildings would not be ideal,” the spokeswoman said.
She said landholders could manage kangaroo populations on their land if they obtained a non-commercial destruction permit.
The last time the department tracked kangaroo numbers in “Upper South East” was in 2011 and it showed 4.7 animals per square kilometre.
The Department has released its draft kangaroo management plan for 2018-2022 for public consultation, which outlines how it will monitor and manage the animal population.