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Kangaroo A Love-Hate Story– a documentary which sets out to
expose the tragic fate of Australian kangaroos – has begun screening in the
United States.
From
directors Mick McIntyre and Kate McIntyre Clere, the film explores Australia’s
brutality toward kangaroos, and the threat of extinction – realities the film
says are ‘cloaked in secrecy’.
‘Pests’
A ‘resource’ to many Australians, Kangaroos are hunted for meat, pet food, and leather – actions
justified by the widely held conception that they are an overpopulated ‘pest’.
One
interviewee said: “The kangaroos are wonderful, fuzzy, they’re maternal, and
they’re also a pest that should be eliminated.”
This belief
is largely substantiated by the fact that cattle farming is disturbed by the presence
of kangaroos – and has prompted what the film calls ‘the largest land-based
slaughter of animals’.
Threat of
extinction
However,
the film exposes otherwise, with one interviewee noting that ‘local and regional
extinctions’ are occurring, and that kangaroos – which have been in Australia ‘for
millions of years’ – are facing the risk of being wiped out.
Another
interviewee asked: “How did we get so hoodwinked into believing that it was
okay to kill our national icon?”
