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| Wedge-tailed Eagle with shot Western Grey Kangaroo |
I was out at night on a track this week behind Cheynes Beach caravan park when I heard a series of gunshots from the farm property abutting the reserve and national park, just a few hundred metres away. This place on the south coast of Western Australia is renowned internationally as a wildlife hotspot of huge importance. I was looking for mammals with a thermal imager and no flashlight to give my presence away. A thin line of scrub was all that potentially separated me from the shooters' bullets. It occurred to me how unsafe the situation might be in an area where wildlife enthusiasts are often out and about at night.
The next morning I returned to the spot . A subadult male western grey kangaroo had been killed and was being fed on by a pair of wedge-tailed eagles. An adult female kangaroo with a well-developed joey in her pouch was lying nearby, with one leg up in the air. Another shooting victim, she evidently had a broken back and was in a great deal of distress. The remains of other kangaroos in the paddock suggested shootings were not a one-off occurrence.
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| Injured female Western Grey Kangaroo |
It bothered me a great deal that wildlife taking refuge in a national park is slaughtered as soon as it enters private property. The kangaroos’ crime was to cross a fence to reach a huge, lushly grassed paddock with no domestic animals in it. To say nothing of the cruelty of leaving a critically injured animal alive. I immediately reported the incident to the caravan park management. They told me to contact National Parks & Wildlife Service in Albany, 70 km away. The NPWS told me it was too far away for them to do anything about it, that it was not really their concern, and to contact volunteer wildlife carers.
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| Western Grey Kangaroos in Cheyne Beach Caravan Park |
Several hours and calls later, I was told a carer was on their way. Then NPWS had a change of heart and decided to become involved; I was interviewed by phone. However, the indications I had from NPWS and the caravan park managers were that the farm owners are “decent people“ who had done nothing wrong; that they had permits to kill “pest” wildlife; and they would “never” fire guns in the direction of the caravan park.
Beautiful Cheynes Beach is a vital ecological reserve . It beggars belief that the owners of a farm surrounded on all sides by protected reserve has licence to behave in a way that threatens not just wildlife but potentially, people watching it.
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| Cheynes Beach |
The injured female was euthanised (after suffering for 18 hours) and her joey was taken into care (the only bright spot in this sordid tale). My suggestion now? The authorities should acquire the farm and allow it to regenerate as endangered species habitat - adding to the surrounding Arpentur Nature Reserve and Waychnicup National Park - after they throw the book over this incident.
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| Wedge-tailed Eagle |
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