Kangaroo cull at Chirnside Park Heritage Golf & Country Club on hold

Wildlife in Chirnside Park remain in the crosshairs with no formal word on whether a roo slaughter is off the table.

Kangaroos at Heritage Golf & Country Club. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The community remains on edge as it waits to hear if a planned kangaroo cull at Chirnside Park Heritage Golf & Country Club will go ahead.

After huge community backlash, including a protest at the site, the planned cull at the course on April 27 was called off.

More than 20,000 people have now signed a petition pleading for the beloved roos to be saved.

Lilydale police recently hosted a meeting between the club and concerned parties, including Wildlife Victoria.

Senior Sergeant Ray White said the discussions were “quite fruitful” and each party was working towards possible alternative strategies.

“At this stage the planned activities (the cull) won’t go ahead until such time as those options

have been fully explored,” he said.

Save the Kinley Kangas group member Alyssa Wormald said it was a “tense and worrying” time for everyone.

“We don’t have any formal assurances from the general manager that he is going to cancel (the cull) for good, so the community remains very on edge,” she said.

“It’s basically torturing the community while we wait.”

The Save the Kinley Kangas group is ramping up its campaign against the commercial Kangaroo Harvest Program, which Ms Wormald said had rendered kangaroos in Victoria “essentially unprotected”.

“Under this program landholders do not need to demonstrate any damage to property, they simply engage a shooter and the kangaroos are slaughtered and joeys bludgeoned simply for pet food and profit,” Ms Wormald said.

“The Heritage Kangas situation shows that even beloved suburban kangaroos are now fair game.”