Kangaroo Industry - Kangaroo Populations

Kangaroo Populations

Of the 48 species of macropods (kangaroos) in Australia, only six can be commercially harvested.

Over 99% of the commercial kangaroo harvest occurs in the arid grazing rangelands. The populations of kangaroos in these areas are estimated every year in each State by well-developed aerial survey techniques. These are sparsely timbered, type ecosystems; hence, it is possible to fly over them and count the large animals, such as kangaroos, seen. Using either low-flying fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, flying at heights of two to 300 meters, the National Parks authorities count the numbers of kangaroos seen over fixed transects. Thirty years of such monitoring have allowed them to develop sophisticated and accurate techniques of extrapolating out to total population numbers. Kangaroos are one of only a very few species (including humans) which have an annual census of their populations.

Current populations stand around 25 million. This means the numbers of kangaroos in Australia are similar to cattle numbers.

It is widely accepted that within the rangelands kangaroos are now more common than prior to European settlement. This situation has arisen due to the increased food and water supply generated by the activities of the sheep and cattle industry. Prior to European settlement, these areas had very few places of surface water from which kangaroos could drink. The pastoral industry has tapped into below-ground water supplies to the point where now very few points in the rangelands are further than 3 km from a permanent water source and no point is further than 10 km.