Last year, GAIA launched its ‘Save the kangaroos’ campaign. By sharing shocking images and hard facts, the animal rights organisation has already managed to convince several major supermarkets – including Delhaize – to remove kangaroo meat from their shelves. ‘The current forest fires break our hearts’, says GAIA Director, Ann De Greef. ‘Despite everything that’s happened, kangaroos continue to be hunted in Australia. Over the past few days, we’ve done everything in our power to convince the rest of the supermarkets to stop selling kangaroo meat. And it’s paid off. Yesterday, Carrefour Belgium decided to discontinue its sale of kangaroo meat.’ A few days later Cora and Makro followed their decision.
Each year in Australia, approximately 1.6 million kangaroos are hunted and killed under extremely cruel conditions. This makes kangaroos the most widely hunted wild animals on Earth. In 2016, Belgium imported more than 630 tonnes of kangaroo meat, which represents some 180,000 (!) kangaroos. That makes our country the world’s largest importer of kangaroo meat. In Australia itself, kangaroos are seen as a ‘plague’ that needs to be culled, as well as a source of lucrative profit for the kangaroo industry and the government. The outcome is an incredibly brutal kangaroo hunt with a complete lack of respect for animal welfare. ‘Even the forest fires haven’t kept kangaroo hunting from going on as usual (with the exception of Victoria, where kangaroo hunting has been temporarily suspended)’, says De Greef. ‘And that’s despite not having the faintest clue as to how many kangaroos there are left.’
Disgrace
For animals, the forest fires are a catastrophe. It’s estimated that a billion animals will be killed in the fires. ‘We are aware that in light of the circumstances this might seem like a meagre victory – but it’s a step in the right direction. We won’t stop until kangaroo meat has been removed from the shelves of every supermarket in Belgium. Next on the list: Match and Spar. ‘It is an absolute disgrace that they continue to sell kangaroo meat. As if the forest fires weren’t bad enough, these animals are still also being hunted wholesale.’
In addition to these efforts, GAIA is appealing to Federal Minister of Economics Nathalie Muylle (CD&V), the Federal Minister of Energy, to temporarily ban the import of kangaroo meat.