
Australians told to eat more kangaroo as population hits double that of humans - tomcam
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/kangaroos-now-outnumber-humans-two-to-one-in-australia-a3632126.html
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jjcm
I've been living out here in Australia for about a year and a half now. It
really is a delicious meat, though it's so lean that your options for how to
prepare it are pretty slim. I've found that mince is the easiest to work with
by far. Kangaroo tacos are really delicious. Burgers with it are decent too.
It's very close to beef in taste, just a slight bit bloodier tasting.

~~~
voltagex_
It's still a bit game-y for me. What else do you put in the burgers?

~~~
X86BSD
Gamey'ness is usually bad meat. People say the same about Lamb. It tastes
"gamey". That's because you are eating tough old lamb. I bet it's the same for
kangaroo.

If it's very lean I would add some fat to it. Pork fat :)

I bet that would make a killer sausage.

~~~
eesmith
Isn't "lamb" a young sheep? How can it be tough and old?

Sheep meat is mutton. Makes a lovely curry.

~~~
GauntletWizard
Not the animal, the meat. The meat has been butchered and then left out too
long. For some meats, aging in this way improves the taste or texture - Not so
much for lamb.

~~~
eesmith
Thanks!

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kirrent
It's worth pointing out that this isn't some hypothetical. Kangaroo meat is
available at most grocery stores and butchers, it's fairly cheap, and quite
delicious. It's the red meat I buy most often.

~~~
vacri
It's also worth saying that kangaroo in Australia is a bit like deer in the
US: city people think the animal is a bit magical, country people think it's a
bit of a pest; some people hunt it for food; you can buy the meat in some
butchers but it's not in the diet of most; and occasionally it's culled
because of population explosion. The only real difference is that the deer is
not a national symbol.

~~~
hkmurakami
Not sure why you're being downvoted, because as a lifelong resident around
deer, afaik everything you've said is reasonable, if not true.

I live in a rural'ish area with a decent deer population [1] . Most residents
see them as endearing, while a minority see them as pests. Go a bit farther
out into more rural (but not boonies) areas where people do more serious (but
still personal scale) agriculture on their properties, and the ag-pest
attitude becomes much more prevalent.

Ask any winemaker and they'll call deer a pest.

Fwiw I'm in the "magical" camp (being neighbors with a deer rescuer will do
that to you!) but understand the ag perspective.

[1] There's a family of deer that walk by my property every evening, and this
morning I inadvertently startled a buck that was chilling out in front of the
house -- they're very timid animals, which I guess is a big difference vs
Kangaroos?

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
I'm within the city limits of a large city in the northeastern US, and I've
seen deer on lawns. And since they spread deer ticks over wide ranges, and
those ticks spread Lyme disease, they're definitely more than just an
agricultural pest. We killed or drove away all the wolves, so now the deer
proliferate.

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cyberferret
My family has started eating kangaroo quite a lot recently. We used to eat a
lot of lamb back when it was a cheap cut of meat decades ago, but the ever
rising price (lamb shanks used to be around $2 each as a throwaway cut,
nowadays they are around $10 each in my local supermarket) has made us switch
to roo.

I love it in stir fries, an my oldest teenage son who is becoming a gym junky
loves eating it because of its low fat content and high protein. I think the
secret is getting the marinade right. We tend to douse it in a lot of
mediterranean herbs and wine overnight so it has a similar taste to highly
spiced lamb yiros meat when cooked up in a pan.

Interestingly, one of our cats eats nothing but raw kangaroo mince (aside from
dry biscuits) and he has grown HUGE (as in huge frame, not fat). Talking to
vets and other cat owners, apparently kangaroo meat can do that to a cat...

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juandg
And yet California insists on continuing to ban all kangaroo imports into the
state.

~~~
augustocallejas
This ban affects dog food that contains kangaroo, and affects states outside
of California too:

[https://www.royalcanin.com/products/royal-canin-
veterinary-d...](https://www.royalcanin.com/products/royal-canin-veterinary-
diet-canine-selected-protein-adult-ko-dry-dog-food-cannot-ship-to-ca/1046)

> This product cannot be shipped to the state of California due to current
> California state laws. Additionally, this product may not be available to
> purchase from Royal Canin directly if you are located in Nevada, parts of
> Utah, Arizona, Hawaii, or parts of Oregon because your order may be
> fulfilled from California

~~~
juandg
Not just meat, kangaroo leather is also banned as well as any other kangaroo
made products

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stevenjohns
Kangaroo is one hell of a pest in Australia. It's a native, which made it
illegal for the general populace to hunt in the early 2000's (this doesn't
apply to Australian Aboriginals). Non-Aboriginals who want to hunt them have
to go through tedious multi-day "ethics" courses on about how you should and
shouldn't hunt them, and even after that your options are limited and the
process is ridiculous.

Unfortunately this has led to kangaroos reaching plague proportions. They
destroy farms, tear down fences and generally be a nuisance. You can barely
drive through rural roads without breaking a sweat in case a kangaroo jumps in
the way of your car.

The problem here is multi-fold.

The location issue:-

1\. Due to Australia's sharp weather, areas could suddenly fall under drought
which would result in a sharp decline in kangaroo numbers.

2\. As a result of this, kangaroo culling is disincentivized in other areas
even though there is an uptick rather than a decline.

The species issue:-

1\. There were originally about eight distinct breeds or so of kangaroo, but
things like hunting and drought has reduced the numbers of those species
dramatically.

2\. The outcome was to limit the amount of kangaroo culling so as to not
affect other breeds.

3\. As a result, overall numbers haven't declined - rather they have sharply
risen - and certain breeds have "muscled out" the at-risk breeds.

Firearms laws in Australia:-

1\. The Australian government banned most firearms after a massacre in 1996.

2\. The Australian public has since come to find guns "dirty" and Australian
lawmakers (coincidentally, those belonging to the same parties that outlawed
hunting of kangaroos) do not want to promote firearms (even in a licensed,
limited fashion)

3\. Promoting the culling of these species would run counter to their
political discourse for the last couple of decades.

~~~
Jedd
Grammatical aside -- historically, aboriginal is an adjective, aborigine is a
noun -- so you could talk about Australian aborigines, or aboriginal
Australians.

Agreed on pest status of kangaroos. They are hugely destructive animals, worse
than goats especially as the larger kangaroos can clear almost any fence, plus
can do you some serious physical harm if they feel threatened.

There's arguably 4-6 species that come under the heading kangaroo. Then you've
got the wallabies (anything not big enough to be considered a kangaroo), and
the wallaroos (anything not either of the above). Then a few other categories
(tree wallabies, say). I feel the taxonomy is unnecessarily confusing.

IIRC, the biggest problem with roos and droughts are that they can stall
development of their young, and then re-start it once the drought breaks -- so
as a group they're very quick to bounce back in numbers.

I think your take on firearms and Australians' attitude towards same comes
across as a bit loaded.

Firearm laws weren't exactly USA-style levels of free-n-easy pre-1996. The
same people that would go out shooting kangaroos pre-1996 are the same people
that are able to legally obtain guns with relative ease today. Most of the law
reform was around semi-automatic, self-loading and pump action style weapons.
So, not terribly high-impact in terms of kangaroo culling by farmers.

I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost every
non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially amongst
those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and consequences of same.

I'm even more dubious about the correlation of political party's attitudes
towards firearms and kangaroo culling. I don't know how trustworthy this
source [1] is, but it suggests the four main political parties in 2016 were
not against the idea of commercial kangaroo culling. Two fringe groups were
against it, but all other parties noted there had 'no official policy'. I
don't know of any political discourse that would be in jeopardy by either the
current administration, or the primary opposition group, by advocating
kangaroo culling.

[1]
[https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions](https://www.voiceless.org.au/election2016_positions)

~~~
barry-cotter
> I feel that the 'dirty' attitude you're referring to is shared by almost
> every non-USA society (or at least, non-USA western society), especially
> amongst those that are informed regarding USA style gun laws and
> consequences of same.

Switzerland, Czechia and all the Nordic countries disagree. ~Every house with
an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun. Czechia recently added the
right to bear arms to their constitution. All of the Nordic countries have
large national gun clubs, I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the
population as members, to dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression.

~~~
dagw
_Every house with an adult male Swiss citizen living there has a gun._

Not true. First of all it's voluntary to keep your gun after military service,
and even if you do choose to keep your weapon it's illegal to have ammunition
for that gun at home (with a couple of very small exceptions).

 _All of the Nordic countries have large national gun clubs_

No they don't. They have local gun clubs for recreational target shooting and
hunting practice, but I wouldn't call them particularly popular. I don't know
anybody who shoots outside of hunting, which admittedly is relatively popular.
And basically everybody still thinks that the US notion of people just
carrying pistols around with them is batshit insane.

 _I think the Norwegian one has over 10% of the population as members, to
dissuade Soviet and now Russian aggression._

What??? I grew up in Norway and lived almost 20 years there and never heard
anyone claim anything even close to that.

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peatmoss
I've been told that, colloquially, kangaroo meat is occasionally referred to
as "skippy."
([http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23086541](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23086541))

I guess this is a bit of gallows humor because of the beloved children's show
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippy_the_Bush_Kangaroo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippy_the_Bush_Kangaroo))

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cyberferret
A few good wet seasons in the North has also resulted in the crocodile
population exploding a little... I am betting that it won't be long before the
government is touting crocodile meat as substitute for chicken or similar...
;)

I've had crocodile quite a few times - not particularly tasty IMO - like a
bland version of fishy chicken. Though the croc skin boot and handbag industry
might get a little saturated...

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NamTaf
Part of the issue with this proposal is that wild roo meet not infrequently
contains parasites in the muscles that makes it unfit for human consumpion.
You have to be careful, just as with other wild meats. As a result, the
supermarket-available roo meat often is farmed rather than wild-caught.

~~~
cyberferret
Same issue with the wild pigs up here in the North. Friends who hunt them say
that the boar meat is delicious (far better than kangaroo), but it has risks
with infections and other parasites that can be transmitted to humans.

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c517402
I visited my brother in Sydney and he took me to a restaurant where they
served chunks of raw kangaroo meat with a super-heated rock to cook it on. I
thought the meat was pretty good.

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jim-jim-jim
I've yet to eat one, but kangaroo leather holds up nicely too. I have some
boots made from kangaroo that have broken in well.

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desireco42
Also population of chickens and possibly cows are outnumbering us a lot, that
is not a reason to eat them.

~~~
mvid
That's a false equivalence, we control the number of cows and chickens almost
to the animal. They aren't a free roaming pest

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desireco42
Export to USA :)

~~~
desireco42
Found out that it is not as hard to find in USA

[https://www.gepperths.com/](https://www.gepperths.com/)

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aaron695
Random fact, not all kanagroos are a pest some are endangered.

Most of their meat is not for the western taste buds. The steak part is on par
with beef. But then it gets pretty gameie pretty quick.

Environmentalists have eaten kangaroos (often without eating any other meats)
for years so this is not a new idea. It's in most supermarkets.

Camel is another pest that was sold commonly for a while, but seems to have
stopped.

Horses and cats are other meats that should be added in.

~~~
Gustomaximus
> Most of their meat is not for the western taste buds

I live in Australia. Kangaroo is very common and popular. It has been for
farmers since the settler days andin my generation its made its way to the
city. Fun fact there used ro be a breed of dog (never made official) for
hunting kangaroos. Also many supermarkets have a camel option or 2.

And as far as I know the only endangered kangaroos are tree kangaroos. These
are super rare and look like a cross between a possum and kangaroo. Others
maybe someone can add?

I think the biggest issue is if they opened up hunting again would be to make
sure people know the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo.

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hourislate
Just tell the Chinese it has some sort of medicinal value or is a wild
aphrodisiac and your Kangaroo problems will be solved.

Chinese demand for this kind of medicine or sexual stimulation is insatiable
as we have seen with Ivory and Rino Horn. The animal may require protection at
some point to avoid extinction.

With careful marketing and some convincing it could very well be a billion
dollar industry.

