Quote:One variety or another are pretty common throught most of Australia. You'll see mobs of Eastern Grey kangaroos if you drive between the big cities on the east coast; I saw quite a few when I drove back to Melbourne from Canberra a couple of weeks ago.
We had one on the front lawn a few years ago (BTW this was in the middle of Canberra - for those that don't know, this is the Capital city of Australia).
Quote:I always thought Kangaroos were an endangered animal.
There are sever4al species of Kangaroo, and yes, some are endangered, but when most people talk about Kangaroos, they are talking about the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, and this one is definitely not endangered (it can be a pest a lot of the times).
It's numbers get so big, that they have to cull them. Some might think this is a cruel response, but the alternative is for the population to grow so large that they eat all the grass and have mass starvation (a far worse outcome).
One thing about Kangaroos is that they are adapted to the Australian environment (as the Eastern Greys demonstrate). This means that they can survive better on the vegetation and water levels found in Australia. It also means that the environment has adapted to them too, so they don't cause to much damage to the environment.
An example of this is with cows, their dung is rather moist (also a waste of water). The dung beetles native to Australia can't handle this moist dung. The result was masses of flys as they laid their eggs in the cow dung. The only solution was to bring in dung beetles that could handle it, and now the fly problem is getting under control.
So farming Kangaroos would actually be a benefit, we would ahve better control over their population, they wouldn't need as much resource (water and feed) and they wouldn't damage the environment as much.
The reason they are not farmed is that people have a hang up about eating them (I don't, I actually like the taste of Kangaroo more than beef - I had some Kangaroo sausages just last week).
