An animal rights group has gone to court hoping to invalidate an earlier directive under the Victorian Labor government to cull 1,000 koalas in March.
The Victorian Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action (DEECA) authorised the cull after bushfires blazed through 2,200 hectares of the state’s Budj Bim National Park earlier this year.
The government authorised the koalas be shot from helicopters, saying they could not be easily reached by rescuers and would have suffered if they were not put down.
But Sue Arnold, coordinator of Australians for Animals NSW, says the incident was an act of unnecessary cruelty.
“The precedent set by the horrific killing of more than 1,000 koalas, potentially with joeys, is not only unacceptable but a shocking indictment of the Victorian government’s cruelty to wildlife,” she said in a statement.
“As a result of a memorandum of understanding between RSPCA Victoria and the government, no action to prosecute cruelty is available under the Prevention of Cruelty Act.
“The slaughter of koalas by helicopter marksmen is indefensible. It is simply impossible to kill koalas from 30 metres with a clean shot. No ground-truthing was undertaken to establish whether any koalas or joeys were left wounded.”
Lawyers for the non-profit group are seeking a declaration from the Supreme Court that the authorisation was invalid, and that the DEECA secretary’s decision to undertake the aerial assessment and destruction of the koalas was unlawful and invalid.
The basis for the legal argument is that the Wildlife Act does not authorise such an act.
Australians for Animals NSW has a 35-year history in koala conservation across Australia and was responsible for listing the Koala under the provisions of the USA Endangered Species Act as “threatened.”
The charity has been involved in campaigns to protect koalas in NSW, Queensland, and Victoria.
DEECA Secretary John Bradley said the koalas had been assessed individually and wildlife workers had gotten as close as possible to observe the creatures, according to AAP.
Bradley said a vet made the assessment that dependent joeys were unlikely to still be with their mothers, and if they were, then injured females would not have been able to provide milk.
The operation lasted about two months and was aimed at achieving better welfare outcomes.
A DEECA spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times that it led an emergency wildlife response at Budj Bim National Park after the bushfire was started by a lightning strike.
“The decision was made on animal welfare grounds to end the suffering of wildlife,” they said. “Wildlife that were assessed as healthy and not in a critical condition were left in their habitat.”
DEECA’s operation ended on May 2.
