I love trying to get a grip on what people outside Australia think of us here down under. I’m interested to know what interests people about our wide brown land.
Apparently, the English find it fascinating that we want to kill off a few camels.
This story is running on the BBC News website at the moment.
Thousands of wild camels roaming the Australian outback are to be hunted and shot by marksmen in helicopters in an effort to protect farmland.
Australian officials say the country’s camel population has grown to about 700,000 in recent years.
Camels were introduced to Australia in the 19th Century as desert transport animals, but have grown in number because they have no local predators.
As you can imagine, the animal rights campaigners have a lot to say about the idea. I tend to agree with their main objection that from the air, it’s impossible to tell if an animal is dead or simply wounded. I understand the need for the cull but it needs to be carried out in the most humane way possible.
Mind you, I still find it strange that the BBC would find the idea interesting enough to be talking about it on the other side of the globe.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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Around here, praire dogs (sort of a squirrel)are commonly hunted. They burrow underground and are known for taking up huge tracks of land as “praire dog towns.” The holes can cripple cattle. Well, they set up a town near a waste water pond here. Their holes were penetrating the protective layer that holds the water in the pond. Otherwise, this contaminated water would pollute our aquifer. The news really jumped on the story of our city planning to kill thousands of these rodents. It was somewhat amusing seeing all this played out.
Here the deer population is growing wild. It’s not uncommon to see deer in backyards of suburban Minneapolis. People have different views on this–some like to feed the local deer–others are irritated when the deer eat their flowers or vegetables.
But a real problem is deer/vehicle accidents on the highway. Too often these are fatal for both animal and human.
Suzi
I can understand knocking the praire dogs on the head, but I guess it seems as weird to us that anyone would kill Bambi as the fact that we shoot Skippy.
I love kangaroos but they are in plague proportions in some places and are culled regularly.
Deer and kangaroos both taste great. Not too sure about prairie dogs.
If you’re going to have plague proportions make sure they are tasty.
š