First there was Paul Hogan, then Lara Bingle and Kyle Minogue and now, Tourism Australia has unveiled its latest ambassador aimed at boosting travellers Down Under: the computer-generated Ruby Roo.
Although the CGI mascot has been mostly well received online, not everybody’s convinced over the choice, with animal activists calling out what they have called the government’s “hypocrisy”.
“If Tourism Australia’s Brand Ambassador Ruby Roo was real, she would have been shot as part of a Government ‘Kangaroo Management Plan’ and hung up by her leg on the back of a ute,” NSW Animal Justice Party MP Mark Pearson said.
Speaking to 2GB’s Ben Fordham, Pearson said “if the tourism industry is going to have the icon as our signature to the world, then talk about what are we actually doing to kangaroos”.
”We can’t keep saying, ‘Oh my god, we’re overrun with kangaroos’ because they’ve been here for millions of years – they’re trying to survive,” he said.
“We don’t know how many kangaroos are out there but this is our native, protected animal, we need to be absolutely certain of how many kangaroos are out there (before we kill them).
“This animal is loved around the world.”
The Australian government estimates there are between 40 to 50 million kangaroos across the country, almost double the nation’s human population.
Due to their grazing habits, they’ve been considered a detrimental pest by some farmers and culling, though controversial, does occur across the country.
Kangaroos are a protected species but shooting and harvesting them for food is considered legal in some circumstances.
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In NSW for example, famers can apply for a licence to kill kangaroos that invade their land and are deemed to be a pest.
Professional shooters also are also legally allowed to cull on behalf of landholders.
But Pearson insisted we need to “work with these animals” and not against them.
“We need to work with these animals, it’s not a competition between a cow and a sheep and a kangaroo,” he said.
”We’re talking about killing kangaroos now and we’ve been killing kangaroos for 250 years.
“If the agriculture industry is saying we’ve still got a problem then the methodology which is just killing and maiming animals is not working.”
Animals Australia Director of Development Louise Bonomi echoed Pearson’s sentiment.
“Tourism Australia using a kangaroo as its ‘face’ of tourism is the equivalent of Japan adopting a whale as its tourism icon or Canada marketing itself using harp seal images,” she said.
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