RSPCA watch dog: RSPCA management fails animals despite the hard work of volunteers

mail iconRSPCA CEO (NSW) Approves Killing of 145,000 Kangaroos
1 June 2009


Steve Coleman, CEO for the RSPCA in NSW and part of the Kangaroo Management Advisory Committee, has given his support for the killing of 145.000 kangaroos which could begin as soon as this month. The Department of Environment and Climate Change has approved the extension of NSW's commercial kangaroo harvest zone. The zone will include the Hunter, Mudgee and Merriwa. The Australian Society of Kangaroos says that by extending the commercial culling there will be 20.000 joeys killed every year, and the same amount will be orphaned.

Steve Coleman is not fulfilling his duty of care to the animals he is paid to protect, not kill. It doesn't bode well for "all creatures great and small" if this is the attitude and stance of the head of the RSPCA in NSW.

Please email Steve Coleman and let him know what you think about his decision to support the killing of 145.000 kangaroos.

Steve Coleman
CEO of RSPCA New South Wales
scoleman@rspcansw.org.au
 

Please also contact the following people from the Department of Environment and Climate Change who are also responsible for this appalling decision:

Lisa Corbyn dgunit@environment.nsw.gov.au
Nicole Payne  nicole.payne@environment.nsw.gov.au
Joshua Gilroy joshua.gilroy@environment.nsw.gov.au


Cheers to former MP Richard Jones and longstanding friend of animals for his email to Steve Coleman! (see below)


Time To Resign Steve

Dear Steve

I too was a member of the Kangaroo Management Advisory Committee twenty years ago but left when I became a Member of Parliament.

The Committee has become simply a rubber stamp for the industry.  By staying on it and being complicit with the opening up of new areas with all the inevitable cruelty involved with the killing of pregnant females and their young, not to mention missed head shots and the disruption of kangaroo families, you are saying the RSPCA approves of cruelty.  It does the organisation no credit to be part of this.   It leaves you open to severe and justified criticism.

The RSPCA should have no part in this cruelty.  It's a bit like ensuring the bunk beds in Nazi concentration camps are wide enough for the inmates but turning a blind eye to what actually happens.  You are complicit with cruelty. You are condoning cruelty. You are saying it is OK.  You need to remember what the letters RSPCA stand for.  It is not the Royal Society for the Promotion of Cruelty to Animals but that is what you are doing.

I'm sure Her Majesty would not be happy to learn that her imprimatur is being given to an organisation that does exactly the opposite of what it purports to stand for.

I should let you know I was the one who ensured the RSPCA was given government funding back in the days of Charles Wright and Richard Amery I am now thinking it wasn't such a good idea after all.


Yours sincerely

Richard Jones

Forest of Friends