The population of kangaroos outnumbers humans in Australia. Data shows the kangaroo population in Australia is close to hitting 50 million, while the human population stands at 24 million.
There are more kangaroos in Australia than there are Australian people.
Red kangaroos thrive in arid grasslands like these in Sturt National Park. Australia is home to 25 million people and an estimated 50 million kangaroos, which some Aussies call “plague proportions.”
No, the kangaroo population in Australia does not outnumber the human population. As of 2021, the estimated human population of Australia is around 25 million people, while the kangaroo population is estimated to be around 45 million.
In 2019, 1.57 million kangaroos were killed for the commercial industry," Animals Australia said earlier this year, citing federal data that also showed there was an overall population of more than 42.5 million kangaroos that year.
There were nearly 50 million kangaroos across Australia in 2017, double the human population, according to official estimates.
Kangaroos are protected by legislation in Australia, both state and federal. Kangaroo harvesting only occurs in approved harvest zones and quotas are set to ensure the sustainability of kangaroo populations. If numbers approach minimum thresholds harvest zones are closed until populations recover.
1. Australia has more kangaroos than people (25 million kangaroos vs 20 million people). 2. More impressively, there are 150 million sheep in Australia.
“Providing water and dingo control to support livestock industries and food production has given rise to these abundant kangaroo populations, to the unfortunate detriment of pastoral industries.
The number of kangaroos in Australia ranges from 15 million to 50 million each year, depending on climatic conditions, compared with about 80 million sheep and 25 million meat cattle, according to government estimates.
Causes of extinction. Many modern researchers, including Tim Flannery, think that with the arrival of early Aboriginal Australians (around 70,000~65,000 years ago), hunting and the use of fire to manage their environment may have contributed to the extinction of the megafauna.
More than 80% of our plants, mammals, reptiles and frogs are unique to Australia and are found nowhere else in the world. Some of our Australian animals are very well known like kangaroos, dingos, wallabies and wombats and of course the koala, platypus and echidna.
Fact: Northern hairy-nosed wombat is the rarest land mammal in the world. In the past 100 years, it occurred in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales.
A female kangaroo is known as a ' flyer ' or a ' doe ' and a male kangaroo a ' buck ' or a ' boomer ' (hence the nickname of the Australian men's basketball team, the Boomers). They live in social groups called mobs .
The kangaroo is one of Australia's cultural icons, but these peaceful animals are hunted by those who want to use their flesh and skin or by farmers who want the pasture where they're found in order to graze forcibly bred introduced species such as cattle and sheep.
Geography: The kangaroo is endemic to Australia. The species is also found in Tasmania and nearby islands. Other marsupials can be found in some parts of Asia and the Americas, though the continent of Australia has by far the most, both in terms of species and population numbers.
The estimated total abundance of grey kangaroos within the seven harvest management zones was 2,363,850 (95% confidence interval: 1,889,300–2,957,550). The total recommended take for 2023 was assessed as 236,350 grey kangaroos, comprising 215,200 Eastern Grey Kangaroos and 21,150 Western Grey Kangaroos.
While red meat has traditionally taken pride of place at the centre of the Aussie dinner table, we're now eating half as much lamb as in the 1980s and two-thirds the amount of beef, but nearly 2.5 times as much chicken and twice as much pork.
Western Australia is now home to the largest herd of feral camels in the world, with 45% of the nation's camels. Most camel herds are domesticated in other parts of the world. In the Australian desert, camels may now out number red kangaroos by 100 to 1.
Great Barrier Reef, Queensland
The wildlife: The animals that call the Great Barrier Reef home include 1,800 species of rainbow-coloured fish, 134 species of shark and ray, six of the world's seven species of threatened marine turtle, 17 species of sea snake, and over 30 species of marine mammal.
No, it doesn't taste like chicken. But nor does it taste quite like steak. Kangaroo is a gamey meat, and some foodies even prefer it to lamb and steak for its tenderness and taste. It tends to be a stronger flavour than beef or lamb, and even though it is a very lean meat, it's not tough like venison can sometimes be.
Koalas, like the platypus and echidna, are a protected native Australian animal, and harming or killing them could bring you a hefty fine or time in jail. So no, you can't eat koalas.
I'm not suggesting that anyone should head out and try roadkill. Indeed, it is actually illegal to be in possession of any part of an Australian native animal without an appropriate licence. On that note, I will say that the stew pictured above may in fact be beef and perhaps I am telling a rather large ''tail''.