By Taylah Eastwell
The community are demanding answers about relocation plans for a much-loved mob of local kangaroos, as the future of the Kinley Estate mob remains unknown.
When residents were informed in July last year that around 40 eastern grey kangaroos would be culled to make way for property developments at Kinley, a group of local wildlife carers and vets banded together to form group Save the Kinley Kangas.
Save the Kinley Kangas member Alyssa Wormald said the group got in contact with the Kinley developer and established a best practice relocation proposal.
“We offered our time and expertise to the developer and stepped in free of charge to help the kangaroos and the community. That was all going great, they halted plans for the culling, and the community really lobbied hard for the government to accept our (relocation) proposal,” Ms Wormald said.
However, when the proposal was near approval, things fell silent.
“The last thing we heard was our proposal had verbal approval but needed to go to the ethics department for approval. Somewhere there it just got smothered, disappeared and the project was taken over by a Melbourne University academic,” she said.
Attempts to contact the developer, who the group had worked tirelessly with to help find an ethical solution for the kangaroos, were met with silence.
“They stopped answering calls, and now we are worried because the academic was looking at relocating the kangaroos for a study, rather than for their welfare,” she said.
To the best of Ms Wormald’s knowledge, people were at the site on Wednesday 26 May to begin relocating the kangaroos to an unknown location.
“Unfortunately now we’ve all just been left in limbo. A big concern we share is that the people who are involved in darting and relocating these kangaroos aren’t experts – we know they are academic kangaroo experts – but if they are not experts in the process of translocating kangaroos, there will be a high mortality rate,” she said.
Kangaroos are said to suffer significant stress and high mortality when translocated due to unfamiliar surroundings, potential territory disputes and risks associated with disease transfer unless assisted by experts.
“And if they’re doing it for a study, a formal study coming out saying a high number of kangaroos died is not only awful for the community and the kangaroos but is going to entrench the governments already outdated views of the impacts of translocation,” Ms Wormald said.
“We know it is absolutely safe if done by experts under the right circumstances and by the right people,” she said.
With attempts to get answers falling on deaf ears, Ms Wormald says the community is highly anxious about what is happening to the loved local mob.
“We just don’t know. Maybe they have better people involved than we know of. I think it is human nature to just jump to worst case scenarios. I’ve had people ringing me thinking they’re going to be taken to the dog meat producers. It really shouldn’t be that hard to just have some transparency with the community,” she said.
“The least they can do is be upfront. Why all the secrecy. We are not setting out to disrupt whatever they are doing, we represent a team of professionals and the community who just want some transparency and accountability.
“People are desperate for answers and want to know what is happening because they have an emotional bond with this mob that’s lived next to them for decades,” she said.
The Kinley developer, Intrapac Property’s COO Maxwell Shifman said “Intrapac Property understands and shares the community’s concerns with regard to the land-locked mob of kangaroos at the Lilydale Quarry site”.
“We remain committed to achieving a humane solution and will release more information about our plans in due course,” Mr Shifman said.
On Tuesday 18 May, local school children attended the Kinley office to drop off a kids petition of artwork in support of the kangaroos at Kinley, asking to be informed about the mob they love.
“They wrote things like ‘I love these kangaroos’, ‘seeing them warms my heart’, ‘I want to know they are safe’, ‘I want updates on their welfare’,” Ms Wormald said.
Save the Kinley Kanga’s and the broader Lilydale community still hasn’t received any word on what is happening with the kangaroos.
