Kangaroo on the menu

By JIM EAGLES

Why would a wildlife sanctuary offer kangaroo meat on its menu? The Warrawong Earth Sanctuary in the Adelaide Hills can lay fair claim to having single-handedly taken six species of small, bouncing marsupial off the endangered list.

It is the only place in the world where you can go for an evening stroll and see rare creatures such as woylies, bilbies, long-nosed potoroos, red-necked pademelons, eastern quolls and southern brown bandicoots busily feeding, fighting and mating.

On our walk we also saw a platypus and had a rare view - because they sleep for 20 hours a day - of a koala climbing a tree and fussily testing out various clumps of gum leaves before finding one to its satisfaction.

It is also a place where you can see a kangaroo pick up a duck and cuddle it ... eh, I must be seeing things. But, no, I rubbed my eyes and it was really happening.

A bunch of kangaroos had been tucking into some food when a huge flock of ducks waddled in and took over. Suddenly one of the kangaroos grabbed a duck and held it in its lap for several minutes, from time to time giving it an inquisitorial look, before letting it go.

"That's incredible. I've never seen a kangaroo do that before," said our guide, Mark Edwards. "Maybe it was trying to reprimand the duck for pinching its food."

After experiences like that, you return to the sanctuary's award-winning restaurant with a pleasant green glow.

But then "Smoked Kangaroo Bruschetta" leaps out from among the entrees and "Kangaroo Fillet" looms ominously amid the mains.

How can dedicated environmentalists spend their days saving bandicoots and their nights serving Skippy for dinner?

The question is obviously not unexpected because the restaurant has a supply of leaflets on hand to provide an answer.

Basically, it is a continuation of the philosophy of Warrawong founder, John Wamsley, that the best way to save wildlife is by applying logic and economics rather than emotion and good intentions.

A maverick among environmentalists, Wamsley has spent the past 30 years gleefully demonstrating that much conservationist effort is misdirected.

For instance, he points out, "Australia spends an enormous amount of resources on stopping trade in wildlife and virtually nothing on the management of feral cats. Fewer than 1000 animals a year are illegally traded. More than 10 billion native animals are killed each year by feral cats."

His solution at Warrawong was, on the one hand, to erect a cat-proof fence and to emphasise the point by turning feline trespassers into souvenir hats.

On the other hand, he gave its population of endangered species a commercial value by unashamedly exploiting them to attract tourists, win conservation consultancy contracts and persuade investors to put money into a listed company, Earth Sanctuaries. Putting kangaroo on the menu is simply a continuation of that philosophy.

Wamsley points out until 30 years ago landowners were allowed to control kangaroo numbers by shooting them but "it was illegal to trade in the dead animals so they were left to rot on the ground. The animals were worthless so they were not treated very humanely".

Today, however, kangaroos can be harvested for commercial purposes, which means "they are no longer worthless. Land-owners are happy to allow more on their land, they treat them with more respect and they treat them more humanely. There are today more red kangaroos in Australia than 30 years ago."

So, he argues, putting kangaroo meat on the menu "improves their quality of life".

It also gives visitors an interesting taste experience, since kangaroo meat is very dense, gamey and low-fat, quite like wild venison. Wamsley's campaign to make conservation more businesslike has had its ups and downs - Earth Sanctuaries has had a rocky ride on the Australian Stock Exchange - but many of his ideas are gaining wider acceptance.

The idea of creating pest-free sanctuaries, or mainland islands, has been picked up enthusiastically in several countries, including New Zealand.

The company now runs Waratah Park in Sydney, home of the original Skippy, Little River in Melbourne and Hanson Bay on Kangaroo Island, as well as Warrawong, and Wamsley was last year named Australian Environmentalist of the Year.

Kangaroo meat is widely accepted across Australia these days and if you're into such things - which I am - you can also try buffalo, crocodile, emu and occasionally wallaby.

But even Wamsley hasn't yet succeeded in making it acceptable to harvest koala, which is probably a great shame for South Australia's other wildlife icon, Kangaroo Island.

The island is a stunning place to get a feel for what Australia used to look like, because it still has about half of its original bush cover, about a third is protected in parks, and there are no rabbits or foxes.

Travel around with someone such as Andy Schofield from Adventure Charters of Kangaroo Island and you can just about find wildlife to order.

For instance, I particularly wanted to see an echidna, one of only two egg-laying mammals, and Andy followed digging signs through the bush until there one was.

"That's a big, cunning, old fellow," he whispered. "Don't make a noise or he'll be gone."

So we stayed quiet as ... bilbies? ... and the echnida snuffled past just a couple of metres away, pausing occasionally to dig for ants or termites.

Speaking of ants, we also saw inch ants - that's an ant an inch long! - and meat ants, so called because they chew the meat off the bones of any carrion, and quickly learned to steer clear of their ferocious little jaws.

We saw birds everywhere, including several eagles (my cousins), a clamorous reed-warbler and a splendid blue wren (worth a mention for their marvellous names), and the rare glossy black cockatoo.

The island has wonderfully accessible colonies of Australian sea lions, New Zealand fur seals and little blue penguins.

Even in farmland areas there are still plenty of the unique island kangaroos and tammar wallabies resting contentedly under bushes.

And it is probably the best place in Australia to see koala because - since being introduced a few decades ago - they are in plague proportions.

More than 30,000 are now chewing their way through the island's eucalyptus trees and as a consequence mass starvation is looming.

The obvious solution is a cull but the South Australian Government is so terrified of tarnishing the country's image by killing the cuddliest animals in the world it has refused permission.

So, while the koalas continue to chomp their way towards an ecological disaster, the politicians run around in circles looking for a politically acceptable solution and koala meat remains off the menu.

Ironically, in the rest of Australia the situation is reversed, with koala numbers collapsing due to disease, loss of habitat and the absence of any incentive to look after them.

As it happens, we ate extremely well on the island, with guide Andy whipping up a sumptuous bush barbecue lunch of King George Whiting in white wine, and calamari with chilli and garlic.

But I wouldn't have minded helping to save the environment by snacking on a little koala in native pepperberry sauce.



GETTING THERE

From December, Qantas will fly direct from Auckland to Adelaide. Contact 0800 767 400.

Warrawong Earth Sanctuary In the Adelaide Hills about 25 minutes from the city. Contact (0061) 8 8370 9197.

KANGAROO ISLAND

It's a 30-minute flight from Adelaide by Emu Air, Regional Express or Great Western Airlines. There's a bus link from Adelaide to a SeaLink ferry from Cape Jervis.

Contact Tour Kangaroo Island
Email: tourki@kin.net.au or (0061) 8 8553 1255.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The South Australia Tourism Commission is on (09) 914 9848
Email: info@satc.co.nz

* Jim Eagles visited Kangaroo Island and Warrawong as guest of the South Australian Tourism Commission and Qantas.