duncan61 wrote:yes It was posh spice that got all weird about it.The other reason was South American Beef was cleared by AQIS for import and the market was flooded with skins.In its heyday the skin paid for the animal and the meat was free now the skin price is at an all time low its not viable to buy Kangaroos even for pet food.King river were a huge exporter off human consumption kangaroo to the Eastern block countries but now they can get beef for half the price.I was in king river office when the boss was trying to explain to a customer on the phone that he only had 3 seatainers of packeged meat and this Russian client wanted 10.VIP stopped using kangaroo in their pet food and use chicken as the meat coming from the bush was going off too soon.Unless I move 400 Km south to Albany or 358Km north to Geraldton I have no where to sell Kangaroos
As a person familiar with Albany, I can confirm that the number of pro shooters has declined significantly because there is insufficient money to be made. Anecdotally the roo numbers in the south coastal/ great southern areas are increasing as they are not being culled by the pros. You can have as much product as you like, but you have to be able to sell it at a reasonable profit. That is not the situation at the moment.
I think your point about South American beef is an interesting one. Clearly roo products have to compete with other meat and leather products from across the world. As Roos are harvested not farmed means you can’t really get economies of scale like you can with an industrial cattle farming enterprise. Then on top of that you have all your transportation costs from paddock to plate. Clearly it seems likely that roo products will remain a niche product. When you consider that Australian dairy farmers are being shafted by the retailers, I don’t hold out much hope for financial largesse being directed at a roo shooter.
I have done a superficial preliminary examination of the viability of becoming a licensed pro shooter. It was clear pretty quickly the numbers didn’t stack up. Even with a preponderance of Roos in my area.