Summary 2026

We are still awaiting the population estimates and quotas for 2026 from the South Australian Government. A request has been made but no data or other information has been published as of 3 January 2026. No doubt the commercial kill continues despite the lack of information.

We will update this section as soon as we can.

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Gobbledegook: Dispelling the myths

Year in year out Australian state governments trot out the same nonsense and year in year out we say this cannot be and is not correct as there is zero evidence that it is correct and a vast historical archive to say it is not correct. Dress the claims up as science and everyone believes them without a single question being asked.

At great expense, the South Australia Government attempts to continue to enable the commercial exploitation of Kangaroos in the state by allowing shooting zone extensions, moving to commercially exploit Kangaroos on public land, shooting large numbers of female Kangaroos and adding new species to the list of those animals that can be commercially exploited.

Despite all these significant additions to what is possible, the actual commercial kill continues to decline. If you take out the recently added species, the actual kill against quota falls to just 15 per cent. Subtracting the impact of shooting zone extensions reduces this figure even further. A clear indication that population estimates for these species are vastly inflated. To put it in simple terms, they are just plain wrong.

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So Watt’s Not? So here are four topline myths:

• That Kangaroo populations have increased since colonisation because of addition al sources of water (water points);
• That Kangaroo populations have increased since colonisation because of improved pastures (never mind the vast scale clearing of habitat);
• That Kangaroo populations have increased since colonisation because Aboriginal people are not hunting them (never mind that industrial scale hunting with powerful guns and vehicles and chillers and the opening of large national and international markets for Kangaroo skins and meat have replaced the small scale seasonal hunts of Australia’s original human inhabitants); and
• That Kangaroo populations have increased since colonisation because their range has increased and they now exist in places where, once, they did not. Odd that the historical evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.

We should note that as vast areas of land have been cleared, many available water sources have been destroyed. We should also note that Macropod species have vanished across the Australian landscape at scale, including total extinctions and regional extinctions. When I asked the South Australian Government how it could be possible, in a state with a large number of post-colonial extinctions and a very long list of species that are in very deep trouble, that the populations of Kangaroos on the state’s commercial list have ‘exploded’ (not even reflected in their own actual kill figures if they care to look) when all other species have experienced precisely the opposite trend?  You won’t be surprised to hear that they could not answer the question. So, Kangaroo boom bust cycle NO, and it’s all humane, that is another very big NO.

While this cruel trade in wildlife should not occur at all, the following species should be removed from the commercial list with immediate effect because of significant damage to actual populations:

• Euro.

Then the recent 2020 additions:

• Kangaroo Island Sooty Kangaroo (Western Grey from Kangaroo Island);
• Tammar Wallaby; and
• Eastern Grey Kangaroo.

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History of actual kill against quota for South Australia from 1975 by species and population estimates since 1978

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The South Australian Government population estimate for Kangaroos being exploited commercially in the state since 2021 are:

• 2021- 2,810,547
• 2022 – 2,775,048
• 2023 – 3,833,889 (biologically impossible increase)
• 2024 – 3,912,711
• 2025 – 4,922,375 (biologically impossible increase)

For reference, government population estimates in the 1980s ranged from 2,831,595 (1982) to 972,390 (1985). The wildest fluctuations in populations with completely impossible increases have occurred since 2016, so in the last decade. In the period there were shooting zone extensions and additional species added, but not enough to account for the population increases. All this going on while the ‘industry’ running low on actual take country wide, was desperately trying to develop its grim trade in Victoria. A period were the marketing propaganda describing Kangaroos as pests and worse, took off around the world.

In the period 2021 to 2025 the inflated population estimates in South Australia led to a combined and unsustainable commercial quota in South Australia of 2,876,300 Kangaroos. The actual commercial kill  was 498,718 (plus 130,000 unaccounted for dependent young), excluding young unaccounted for in both population estimates and quotas, that was just 17 per cent of quota for the period. The bounty added ……

Because none of these species can sustain the killing rate, a detailed investigation needs to occur in relation to the future prospects of both the Red Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo in South Australia.

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2025: Commercial exploitation of Kangaroos in South Australia

The total Kangaroo population estimate for South Australia in 2024, which sets 2025 quotas, was 4,922,375 (includes the Eastern Grey Kangaroo) giving a quota for 2025 of 805,800, up from 577,000 in the previous year. If the quota was met in 2025, this would mean 230,000 joeys (not included in the data) would also die by decapitation, beaten to death or starvation if they escape.

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‍2025: What we know so far

The actuals for the period 1 January to 1 July 2025 as reported by the Government of South Australia are:

• Red Kangaroo – 37,880;
• Western Grey Kangaroo – 20,187;
• Eastern Grey Kangaroo – 6,816;
• Euro – 3,498; and
• Tammar Wallaby (Kangaroo Island) – 0.

TOTAL ACTUAL KILL – 68,381 (8.5 per cent of full year quota).

‍While the actual kill is very low when compared to quota, the kill is still higher than the Nature Knowledge Channel’s forecast. Given this I asked the Government of South Australia the following questions.

The numbers are interesting, particularly so as the numbers are higher than our forecast for SA and the period.

Was this because?

• Public lands are being accessed more actively by commercial shooters? Or
• Are joeys included in the data – at least the older at-foot joeys? Or
• Is the bounty having an impact, particularly in remoter regions that are not usually viable when it comes to commercial exploitation.

It will be interesting to know which of these is the main driver of the increase in kill.

In response to these questions the Government of South Australia report the following:

“At this stage, there does appear to be an increase in the number of Kangaroos harvested compared to last year, however, it is hard to know if this trend will continue into the second half of the year.

I can confirm that the data provided to you in my previous email did not include joeys. The higher harvest is most likely driven by a number of factors, including climatic conditions and industry demand. At this stage it is too early to tell if the PIRSA drought program has had an impact on the number of Kangaroos harvested given DEW has only received two months of harvesting data since the program started mid-May. The higher harvest is also not a result of increased commercial harvest on parks, this is a very small percentage of the overall harvest and is not expected to significantly change from last year’s numbers.

Further analysis of the harvest data will be conducted when the 2025 harvest report is developed early next year”.

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The impact of the Kangaroo bounty

A letter (July 2025) to Peter Hylands from South Australia’s Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development / Minister for Forest Industries, contains the following paragraphs.

“The program aims to reduce the impact of Kangaroos on farmers’ pastures and crops, as well as mitigating the poor animal welfare outcomes due to lack of food and water available for Kangaroos. Consecutive good seasons has meant Kangaroo numbers have boomed, and the current drought has left them with little to eat. Kangaroo populations are surveyed each year, and the science to estimate kangaroo population numbers has been extensively peer-reviewed. Currently, it is estimated there are 5 million to 6 million Kangaroos in South Australia, with only approximately 100,000 harvested per year. The additional measures are estimated to remove between 50,000 to 100,000 additional Kangaroos”. Hon Claire Scriven MLC

Prior to the bounty being announced, the Nature Knowledge Channel’s forecast for actual kill against quota in 2025 at 94,500 was just 11.7 per cent, revised upwards to 106,500. When the bounty was announced we said the bounty might increase this number given high levels of access to pretty well everywhere Kangaroos exist. Given what has happened since the bounty was introduced and what we know about the numbers to date, our estimate in terms of the additional number of Kangaroos killed as a result of the bounty, and other incentives to kill more of these animals, will be an additional  7,455 Kangaroos (plus any joeys caught in the killing), so nowhere near the 50,000 to 100,000 additional animals claimed by Claire Scriven. In total, $900,000 of the state government's $73 million drought-support package was made available to support the killing of South Australia’s Kangaroos in ‘drought-impacted regions’. If all the money allocated was expended in bounties and other incentives, the government are effectively paying a bounty / subsidy for every Kangaroo killed in South Australia from mid-May 2025, when the bounty was introduced, to year end, so the entire budget may well  be expended. If this is the case, the South Australian Government will have spent $900,000 to kill an additional 7,455 Kangaroos, that is $120.72 per Kangaroo, a shocking misuse of government expenditures. It will be interesting to see what actually happens.

This begged the question, now answered above, are joeys now to be counted as part of the commercial kill as this has never occurred before as they are considered not to be viable for processing? The images of joeys killed as part of the Drought Support Package and supplied by PIRSA suggest that at least some joeys may be being processed.

We should remember this. In South Australia there is no achievable ceiling to the killing because populations are overstated and as a result, quotas are so high, and this results in the lowest actual kill against quota in percentage terms in Australia at just 17 per cent in both 2023 and 2024. In addition to this, Kangaroos can now be killed in almost every place in South Australia where they exist. So there are no achievable and regulated upper limits to the killing to deter shooters or farmers from obliterating Kangaroo populations. They are already killing everything they want to kill. We should also note that year on year the claims of a booming population increase, populations increasing from 3,912,711 in 2023/4 to 4,922,375 in 2024/5, were biologically impossible. That means IMPOSSIBLE.

This in turn means that the bounty will act as a proxy subsidy to enable an unsustainable industry, based on dubious claims and an even more dubious ‘science’, to continue until there are very few, if any, Kangaroos in South Australia. Just look at the state’s track record when it comes to wiping out native species.

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End game

Apparently Kangaroo populations in South Australia are so high, after, I quote the South Australian Government, ‘successive good seasons’ and that ‘ the subsequent drought conditions mean high numbers of Kangaroos can cause severe damage to crops, pasture’, and wait for it, ‘native vegetation’.

Our experience of the South Australian landscapes is one of total absence. The myths of booming populations and mass starvation, are precisely that, myths. Remember that prior to the announcement of the initial bounty earlier in the year, the Nature Knowledge Channel’s forecast for actual kill against a quota based on the usual inflated population estimates (biologically impossible) was that actual kill would be just 11.7 per cent of the 2025 quota. The reason for this, the Kangaroos do not exist in the numbers being claimed.

Plan upon plan to exterminate Macropods from South Australia, the latest iteration of which, popped up at the end of October 2025, will support primary producers, again I quote the South Australian Government, ‘ to remove Western Grey Kangaroos, Red Kangaroos, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Euros and Tammar Wallabies’.

While the now incomplete, South Australian Government Inquiry into Kangaroo and Wallaby populations in South Australia, was in progress, the government have hastened to ensure, across a whole range of mechanisms, that as many Kangaroos and Wallabies are removed from South Australia’s already empty landscapes, prior to the handing down of any findings from that inquiry. Our submission, along with others that describe what is actually occurring in South Australia, remain unpublished.

So the latest addition to the 2025 bounty program:

“A total of $350,000 is available for this initiative to provide incentives for primary producers, to remove starving Kangaroos. These incentives are the subject of these guidelines…. under this incentive, PIRSA is paying primary producers”.

We should remember that when I contacted the ABC regarding its claims about the very high populations of Kangaroos in South Australia and the Arid Landscape Board which had contributed to the news item, claiming large populations of Kangaroos were starving, there was no reply. The ABC journalist, Luke Radford, stating:

“The desperation for food is so great, their numbers so large, that Kangaroos are even destroying the native landscape in which they evolved in”.

Not the kind of person who gives up, I followed up the ABC, and more than once, no reply. So I rang the Arid Landscape Board, no reply from them either to my emails, saying we would like to send a film crew over to South Australia to film the vast numbers of Kangaroos and the damage they were doing. I was told that there was nothing to see as the Kangaroos had now dispersed, where to was not clear.

So the latest round of funding of an additional $350,000, adds to the already available $900,000 announced during the inquiry period provided for ‘existing and new field harvesters to assist with operating costs’.

Perhaps it is time for the Federal Government to have its own inquiry into what is occurring here, after all, apart from the extreme cruelty and the loss of species that are so uniquely Australian and which have existed in harmony with other Australian species in those landscapes for millions of years, these are public funds that are being expended.

We keenly await the actual kill figures for 2025. That will reveal what has actually occurred here.

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Bounty and dependent young animals

Given the vast scale algal bloom impacting South Australia’ s coastline, and doing so for months, it is beyond comprehension that South Australian Government public servants are tied up in a complex and pointless Kangaroo bounty scheme to kill the remaining  and rapidly declining populations. Here we answer two questions.

• Will the financial incentives be paid for young Kangaroos?
• Financial incentives will be paid for Kangaroos that are fully furred and destroyed under a permit to destroy wildlife. The notification adds - Every Kangaroo needs to be humanely shot in line with existing standards. The problem is that existing standards are a very long way from being humane.

So what are they going after? – Which species of Kangaroos can be shot under a Permit to Destroy Wildlife? Permits will be issued for the following species:

• Western Grey Kangaroos;
• Red Kangaroos;
• Eastern Grey Kangaroos;
• Euros; and
• Tamar Wallabies (Kangaroo Island).

And all this during a period when the South Australian Government’s own Inquiry into Kangaroo and Wallaby populations in the state drags on without conclusion.

Disgraceful.

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South Australia: Reported actual kill in 2024

In South Australia in 2024 a total of 105,845 Kangaroos were shot for commercial gain (excluding joeys). That was just 17 per cent of quota which was set at 635,400. The quota, a number which included the five species of Macropod currently killed for commercial gain in the state.

• The Red Kangaroo suffered the most of the five species commercially exploited in the state and 63,664 Red Kangaroos were killed in 2024. The South Australian Government data shows that the number of Red Kangaroos killed for commercial gain was largest in the eastern pastoral shooting zone, where 29,194 Red Kangaroos were killed.
• Western Grey Kangaroos came second on this disgraceful league table at 29,518 animals kill for commercial gain. The highest number of Western Grey Kangaroos killed were in the eastern agricultural shooting zone, where 10,069 Western Grey Kangaroos were killed.
• For the Euro, the highest kill was 2,529 in the eastern agricultural shooting zone.
• Eastern grey Kangaroos were killed in the lower south east sub region within the southern agricultural shooting zone and 7,516 Eastern Grey Kangaroos were killed in that zone.
• No Tammar Wallabies were killed for commercial gain in 2024. The 2024 quota was 19,200.

The share of females killed for commercial gain was as follows:

• Red Kangaroo – 21 per cent female;
• Western Grey Kangaroo – 32 per cent female;
• Euro – 2 per cent female;
• Eastern Grey Kangaroo – 40 per cent female; and
• Number of joeys killed by decapitation or beating to death (estimate) – 25,950 (additional to government published data).

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South Australia: Reported actual kill in 2023

As a share of the commercial kill, this is what happened in 2023, fairly typical of the recent period.

• 58,664 – Red Kangaroo;
• 28,403 – Western Grey Kangaroo and Kangaroo Island Sooty Kangaroo;
• 6,049 – Euro;
• 53 – Tammar Wallaby; and
• 7,445 – Eastern Grey Kangaroo.

Of the total of 100,594 animals killed in South Australia, Red Kangaroos were 58 per cent of the commercial kill. The quota for 2023 for all species in South Australia was 576,300 animals, just 17.4 per cent of the quota was met.

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Red Kangaroo actual commercial kill (from South Australian Government data)

• 1975 – 35,710
• 1978 – 51,997
• 1980 – 111,247
• 1981 – 145,000
• 1982 – 172,100
• 1984 – 83,469

The 1990s were a period of very large scale killing of Red Kangaroos in South Australia for commercial gain and reflected the growth of commercial exploitation for financial gain. Essentially Kangaroos are something for nothing, unless that is, you happen to be a government underwriting the activity in its many dimensions.

• 1990 – 172,793
• 1991 – 213,628
• 1994 – 278,346
• 1995 – 276,492
• 2001 – 193,400
• 2008 – 103,229
• 2010 – 65,192
• 2016 -  69,346
• 2019 – 68,711
• 2020 – 49,784 (Covid had little impact as commercial Kangaroo shooters continued their work, classified as an essential service).
• 2022 – 49,371
• 2023 – 58,644
• 2024 - 63,664

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Non-commercial ‘destruction permits’ to kill Kangaroos in South Australia in 2024

1,584 permits were issued to kill 109,497 Kangaroos in South Australia in 2024, the outcome of which is unknown.

Comprised:

• Red Kangaroo – 15,102;
• Western Grey Kangaroo – 73,910;
• Euro – 6,676;
• Eastern Grey Kangaroo – 1,989; and
• Tammar Wallaby –11,820.

As a reference point as to trends, in 2022, 1,123 permits were issued to kill Kangaroos for purposes other than exploitation. The total number of Kangaroos on these permits was 61,489. This consisted of 5,862 Red Kangaroos; 46,161 Western Grey Kangaroos; 2,766 Euros; 1,030 Eastern Grey Kangaroos and 5,670 Tammar Wallabies.

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Killing Kangaroos on public land in South Australia in 2024, National Parks and Wildlife Reserves

This activity is particularly shameful and means there are no safe places for Kangaroos or Wallabies in South Australia.

Non-commercial killing was undertaken in 9 parks where the following were killed:

• Red Kangaroo – 49;
• Western Grey Kangaroo – 1,685 (this includes the Sooty Kangaroo, the Western Grey from Kangaroo Island); and
• Euro – 406.

A total of 2,140 Kangaroos were killed using destruction permits, of this number 50 per cent or 1,077 Kangaroos were killed in the Gawler Ranges National Park.

Killing for commercial gain was undertaken in 5 parks where the following were killed:

• Red Kangaroo – 1,240;
• Western Grey Kangaroo– 729; and
• Euro – 20.

In 2024, a total of 1,989 Kangaroos were killed for commercial gain in nature parks, that is 889 more than in the previous year.

We assume joeys are additional and not accounted for?

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Lexicon: The myth of Kangaroo plagues and pests

“Highlighting concerns that even with quotas, commercial harvesting is "not making a dent" in the exploding Kangaroo populations in some areas in South Australia”.

Be suspicious if you see these words used in material about Kangaroos: Overabundance, booming, abundance, exploding, erupting, eruptions, irruption, waste, compost (yes compost), pest, plagues, over-grazing, all starving, kinder to kill them, dangerous, control, manage, management, controlling, harvest, harvesting, destroying infrastructure, dressed-in-the-field, humane (perhaps the weaseliest word of all), sustainable, hygienic, nibbling, grazing pressure, it is all about sustainability, conservation culls, ecological grazing (when they shoot the Kangaroos and put cattle in these places), biodiversity conservation, chomping, disease, diseased, descending, invading. All of it carefully created especially for you.

"Upping the ante, here is a term that cropped up recently in an ‘academic’ paper on Kangaroos – Hyperabundant, overabundant was clearly not enough".

August 2021 - The war on Australia’s natural world is set to continue until the very end.

And lots of money is being spent to accelerate the killing and exploitation. Probably as counter to the fallout from the NSW Kangaroo inquiry we get even more nonsense and propaganda from other states. And we even get some more weasel words.  

From Tasmania - we seek to get the balance right in supporting farmers, foresters and land managers in managing the impact of browsing wildlife on agricultural and forestry sectors while ensuring sustainability of wildlife species is maintained.

And from South Australia - Kangaroo over-abundance and over-grazing presents a threat to the condition and resilience of South Australia’s landscapes, to Aboriginal cultural values, to the sustainability of the livestock grazing industry, and to conservation values.

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All Australian mainland since 1980: Commercial quota compared to actual take

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