Kangaroo Farms For Meat Urged

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30934, 15 December 1965, Page 21

Kangaroo Farms For Meat Urged

SYDNEY, Dec. 14. The New South Wales Government Is being urged to set up farms to breed kangaroos for their meat by the New South Wales Fauna Protection Panel.

Farming and caring for kangaroos not only would provide food, but also would save the species from extinction, the panel contends. “Few people realise that the kangaroo, far from being vermin, is the best natural source of meat we have in Australia today,” the panel’s administrative officer, Mr Alan Fox, said today. “Kangaroo meat is delicious. It tastes every bit as good as venison. “Tests made on all kinds of meat, including beef and mutton, show kangaroo meat has the highest protein value. “Kangaroo meat is 52 per cent protein, compared with meat from sheep, which is only 26 per cent” Mr Fox said successful pilot schemes had been set up in western areas of the State. Farmers keeping herds of kangaroos had found they ate only half as much as sheep. They grazed happily along-' side sheep or cattle and multiplied faster. But many graziers were against the scheme because

they said the kangaroos passed on parasites to other animals, he said. Mr Fox said research tests disproved this theory. “This is why we want the Government to step in and set up more pilot schemes all over the State,” he said. “Kangaroo meat already is earning Australia large sums as exported pet food.