Kangaroo numbers predicted to explode

WA's southern farmers and pastoralists face a future kangaroo population explosion and some professional shooters a bleak future.

That is an industry prediction after the State's biggest kangaroo meat buyer told its suppliers it will stop processing WA kangaroos for pet food.

Queensland-based VIP Petfoods, which claims to be Australia's largest producer of fresh chilled pet meat, told its kangaroo suppliers a fortnight ago it will stop processing carcases at its Wangara factory.

It said it would source all its kangaroo meat from the east in future - mainly eastern greys - and process it at its purpose-built export-standard chilled pet meat factory at Yatala, south of Brisbane.

Margaret River Pet Foods owner operator Troy Childs is one of the VIP suppliers wondering what he will do now.

"We've been supplying them with kangaroos for seven years," said Mr Childs, who is a professional shooter, operates a chiller and also processes kangaroo meat in the South West under the Margaret River Pet Foods brand.

"We got a whole 24 hours' notice.

"They rang up and said they were sending the truck down next week to pick up what we had and that's it.

"We had eight full-time and part-time shooters who supplied us and they're all looking for work.

"One of them has already moved on because there's not a lot of work around here.

"Farmers can't afford to pay professional shooters - I don't know any shooter who gets paid by the farmer, they all rely on the money from tagged carcases."

Mr Childs said if there was no market, there was no money.

He said the industry would lose some of its professional shooters who would find employment elsewhere, and their special shooting skills would be lost.

Mr Childs predicted it would be an issue after a good season or two when farms would be over-run with kangaroos competing with stock.

He said shooters had supplied him with between 5000 and 6000 carcases a year, 2000 of which he processed under his own label and the rest were sold to VIP.

"We can still take our 2000 but there's no way we can process the other 3000-4000,'' Mr Childs said.

"There's a couple of other smaller pet food processors in WA but none of them are geared up to take the quantity that VIP took - that equates to about 20 tonnes of boneless kangaroo meat a week.

"I really don't know what we are going to do now."

He said South West vineyards would be hit by the expected kangaroo population explosion.

"They cost the wineries a lot of money down here," Mr Childs said.

"I shot at one fenced vineyard - it was only small - and the owner estimated that saved him $30,000 in damage."

Pastoral stations across the Nullarbor would also feel the impact of VIP no longer taking kangaroo carcases and professional shooters leaving the industry as a consequence, he said.

"A few years ago I shot Mundrabilla, which is one of the big Nullarbor stations,'' he said.

"To get 7000 of my quota, I was working 80 to 90 hours a week for 10 months.

"Rawlinna is another one, it's three million acres, you can't clear a station that size of 'roos using weekend shooters, it's just too big.

"They've been breeding flat out and we were only just starting to get on top of it."

Mr Childs said he could understand the financial reasons behind VIP's decision to source its kangaroo meat entirely from eastern States.

"In WA the going rate is $1 a kilogram and they were taking about 100,000 (carcases) a year.

"In Queensland they are taking 20,000 a week and paying 40 cents a kilogram," he said.

Mr Childs' concerns about a future kangaroo population explosion were echoed by long-term pet meat industry stalwart Joe Astone, Pets Meat Supplies, Mt Hawthorn.

"We are going to have a future problem (with kangaroo numbers)," said Mr Astone, who has been in the pet meat industry for 40 years and took over the business from his father.

"It will only take one good season and they will breed up to be a problem.

"But we've seen it all before, this is not the first time the industry has lost a market."

He said when kangaroo numbers became a problem on pastoral stations they congregated near available water and "bullied" sheep away.

Amateur shooters who left carcases behind were not a solution, Mr Astone said.

"You can't leave carcases in the paddock, they breed flies and they attract the wild dogs," he said.

He confirmed his business had its own shooters who supplied it and it was not in a position to take the carcases VIP no longer wanted.

"We were inundated all last week with people ringing us up and wanting us to take their meat," Mr Astone said.

The Department of Parks and Wildlife, which administers kangaroo shooting and issues quota tags, said 422 kangaroo shooters were registered to work in WA last year.

Last week on ABC radio VIP Petfoods chief executive officer David Grant confirmed the company would stop processing kangaroo meat in WA.

Mr Grant said it was a financial decision.

The Wangara plant would continue to produce dog food using local chicken meat, he said.