Call to reverse decision to cull Agile wallabies at Mission Beach

Eligibility - Queensland residents
Principal Petitioner:
Lynda Staker
Australian Society for Kangaroos
14 Kintyre Court
Total Signatures - 260
Sponsoring Member: The Clerk of the Parliament
Posting Date: 7/5/2014
Closing Date: 5/6/2014
Tabled Date: 6/6/2014
Responded By: Hon Andrew Powell MP on 4/7/2014
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House that the decision by Environment Minister Powell to authorise the destruction of 1050 Agile Wallabies at South Mission Beach should be suspended in the absence of scientific population counts, ecological studies or the use of non lethal alternatives.

 

The remaining Agile Wallaby population is estimated to be just 200 along the entire Cassowary Coast, meaning these permits have the potential to drive the Cassowary Coast Agile Wallabies to extinction and put at risk the biodiversity of the Cassowary Coast of which the Agile Wallabies play an integral part.

 

These destruction permits are causing unnecessary cruelty as the wallabies are forcefully herded out of town and killed, their social structures and family bonds destroyed, and their joeys bashed to death, decapitated or orphaned after the mother is shot (RSPCA report, 2002). Relentless shooting of these wallabies and the clearing of their habitat for development is the direct cause of the wallabies inhabiting the South Mission Beach township as they attempt to find refuge.

 

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to suspend further shooting of Agile Wallabies within the Cassowary Coast until all non lethal alternatives are exhausted, and an independent scientific study is conducted upon the remaining Agile wallaby population to ensure that the conservation of the Cassowary Coast Agile Wallaby population is not at risk or the biodiversity of the Cassowary Coast ecology.