Bushwalk Australia

I think a good way to market something is with a good recipe. So maybe start flooding the foodies/recipe sites with kangaroo based recipes and sales may increase. It's an interesting push, I quite like kangaroo and wallaby as long as it's cooked right.

As for farming methods, I don't know how you'd go about it but I've been reading the book Dark Emu of late and it certainly points out the degradation of the soil after sheep and cattle were introduced. It also suggest how kangaroos were herded and managed so as to not deplete numbers. In fact it mentions a lot of good farming and cropping practices.

Roo was quite popular in the 80's. I was a chef in a previous life and back then we served kangaroo sourced from a game supplier Most butchers can order it in if you ask them. Doesn't have a lot of fat so needs to be cooked rare/medium rare if grilled or it's dry...similar to venison. The loin is the best cut for grilling and the leg is good for stews and pies. Nice if you marinate it in red wine...char grill...serve with a red current and green peppercorn sauce...mmmm...Bon Appétit!

Thanks guys, you are only two, but have not taken long to expand on what possibilities could lie ahead of a well gate kept industry.

To the greenies amongst us who can love roos but eat them too. No different than being selfish enough to have kids, and selfish enough not to have them. To love my children but let them eat sweets or junk food. To love bushwalking but say little about the destruction of unique places, or overlook I am part of loving it to death. To drive 2km to the shops rather than taking the dog for a walk. To trust a political side, to only have the elected Prim Minister ousted so the party can desperately hang on to power they don't deserve.
I am a greenie, a small business man, a family man, a swinging voter, and have done all. Its a matter of realising what is important for the big picture. I only live for 80ish years, then its my kids turn. The 2 to 3 generations of my Australian ancestors from an Earth sustainable point of view, have seen not much further than what money they can make today. To make money today, but add a real fair dinkum element to Earth sustainability is just a matter of choice.

Xplora wrote: Have you ever seen what happens to Kangaroos when they try to get through a fence because they are scared? They can be tamed if reared from a joey but otherwise their instinctive flight response leaves them a bit short of good judgement. Even those mobs who are accustomed to humans will flee if pressure is put on them. How would you plan to harvest them? Come up with something viable and practical and people will listen if there is money in it. Until then it is not much more than white noise.

All farm animal species started wild. Sure, it takes time and effort to domesticate the species but it can be done. Saying "it's too hard" ensures it won't happen.

I don't see why there should be a problem with fencing and roos. Plenty of farmers are erecting roo proof fences to reduce the grazing pressure from roos so that they can stock more fat lambs and the like. If fences can be built to keep roos out, they can be built to keep roos in.

Snowzone wrote:I think a good way to market something is with a good recipe. So maybe start flooding the foodies/recipe sites with kangaroo based recipes and sales may increase. It's an interesting push, I quite like kangaroo and wallaby as long as it's cooked right.

Marketing is a good part of the problem with roo meat. Much of it is lumped into broad categories, without much differentiation for quality. This is a big problem, because not all roo meat is equal. The roo industry is a good few decades behind the cattle industry in this sense. Without decent marketing, people don't know what they're getting, and are far less likely to buy a product. Or pay premiums for it, which is what Australian farmers really need. I've been told that the pricing of roo sometimes varies less based on the quality of the product, and more on the affluence of the suburb it is being sold in.

Plus, there's the Skippy factor, something which I admit I have trouble getting over when faced with kangaroo meat.

Also a large problem is the processing of them. Shot in a paddock, hung on a rack on the back of a ute for hours whilst the ute is filled with carcasses, the whole time being covered in dust, then off to the chiller which is a glorified container with an air conditioner in it. There they wait until the transport comes to collect a full load and off to the meat works to then be processed. That whole timeline can be a week before it gets to begin to look like meat instead of a carcass. Now look at the same thing for a cow, taken live to abattoir, dispatched and processed. Timeline for that is under an hour from live animal to cryovac beef.


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But that is the difference between a little marketed, low supported, emerging industry and a mainstream industry back by all sorts of interests. If roos had the same demand, status, and acceptance as cows the abattoir could or would be similar.

Giddy_up wrote:Also a large problem is the processing of them

If kangaroos can't be brought to the abbatoir, perhaps a mobile abbatoir can be brought to the kangaroos.

Pteropus wrote:I’m not against the idea, and in fact, I think it should be considered. But farming macropods is likely going to be a very difficult process. I am sure someone has come up with some good ideas on how to do this, but basically roos are difficult to keep in a paddock, and are difficult to control when attempting to move. Capturing them can lead to severe stress related myopathy (muscle stress) and death. Fencing costs would also be enormous. Assuming the kangaroo product industry began to become more mainstream, and graziers got on board to the idea, I think some sort of cooperative system would be required, where roos could range across many large properties and everyone share the profits, if there were any. Large scale harvesting of wild populations would need to be monitored with much greater scrutiny too. There are a lot of things to consider before this could work. And of course there are a wide range of other animal ethics issues that would need to be nutted out and likely to be fought over too, with great passion from animal rights groups against graziers who may not have the passion for joining a roo industry. Just some thoughts…

This is a beautiful reply that actually addresses some of the "difficulties" with trying to have a captive population of Kangaroo's.
Yes, the hardest part would be trying to move/relocate the kangaroo's due to those reasons.

Just spent the weekend down at Girraween NP, I pondered, wondered, and thought could I really advocate such a thing as I watched mum roo hop around with joie. Feet and head sticking out the pouch as they grazed the grass, such a cute sight. But its the bigger picture that keeps coming home to me in regard to Global Warming. It's going to affect us, we need to change, we need to find alternatives even if they are different to what we do now.

I once had a father in-law who was commissioned to cull rabbits. He used a fence around a water hole with a gate. Left it open at night, closed it in the morning, and the rest one can work out. Watching these roos at Girraween, they disappear into the scrub during the day but come out late afternoon to graze on the clearings with good grass, often that they have made and tend to. Perhaps some kind of "they come to you" can be worked out. Maybe us white blokes should ask a black bloke how it was done.

I noticed the other day coming home from the Blue Mountains once one changes what they are looking for with regen trees, it's pretty easy to work it out. It seems much of it are wind or privacy screens planted in straight lines evenly spaced, and about 4 to 8m wide. This would be for ease, speed, and cost. Often only a few species, and are often all in similar height; so it highlights the work to some degree of what has been done. But it worried me for a reasonable part, that what I was considering as remnant growth spared from original clearing, was actually wind breaks and privacy planting from 30 40 50 years ago. Which O wondered if one takes in just what they see from the car, all the regen work new and old may be lucky to fill in 1000 acres amongst the 100's of 1000's of cleared acres between Bis and Blue Mtns. Certainly around Walcha to Armidale it seems councils, someone or some group are very active with regen for wind breaks or privacy. But Nth of there in Qld it's slim sightings.

If benefit to country is your number one goal, not just benefit to humans, then one would think it would be better to not farm animal species at all, but rather go to a plant based diet which reduces carbon output, reduces land erosion and salinity, reduces land needed for farming and opens up large tracts of land that can be reverted back to its original form, thus allowing habitat for our native animals. Its a win win.

Earthling wrote:If benefit to country is your number one goal, not just benefit to humans, then one would think it would be better to not farm animal species at all, but rather go to a plant based diet which reduces carbon...

Significant human population reduction beats them all!

GPSGuided wrote:

Earthling wrote:If benefit to country is your number one goal, not just benefit to humans, then one would think it would be better to not farm animal species at all, but rather go to a plant based diet which reduces carbon...

Significant human population reduction beats them all!

Yes your right, no extra humans coming from me using up the Earth