It is gratifying that Bill Stefaniak (CW 7 July 2022 p10) feels the need to write an article defending his role in perpetuating the current kangaroo slaughter in Canberra. But the fact remains that nothing can excuse the partisan behaviour of the ACAT Tribunals he chaired in 2009 and 2013, nor of the third, under a different, less memorable chair in 2014.

The people of Canberra are finally beginning to realise that they have been conned. There is not and never was a “problem” with kangaroos in the ACT. They were never overpopulated, they were never overgrazing, they were never eating other critters “out of house and home”, they were never starving. In fact, they are essential to the survival of those other critters, and to the plants that provide habitat for them all.

These facts became abundantly clear to every non-partisan observer at those ACAT hearings, but at least two members of the Tribunal, one of whom was Mr Stefaniak, managed not to hear them.

The real “problem” in the ACT is that rampant development is systematically devouring every scrap of suburban native wildlife habitat, once the basis for our now defunct title “the Bush Capital”. This development is what the ACT government needs to address, to control, to “cull”, instead of totally eradicating our innocent, gentle, iconic and ecologically critical kangaroos.

Incidentally, while it is good to know that Bill no longer shoots kangaroos, killing other sentient beings like pigs and rabbits is no less inhumane. Nor, is it any less environmentally destructive, though for completely different reasons. Killing litter-breeding animals like pigs and rabbits ensures more, not fewer of these animals (a sustained population of younger, smaller and more fertile individuals). Killing much slower breeding animals like kangaroos inevitably results in attrition and, unless checked, in ultimate extinction.

• F Seymour, Queanbeyan

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