by Hans Fischinger, France

Horrifying reports are reaching Europe about the inhuman way part-time non-professional, illegal spotlight shooters are killing kangaroos in Australia. Up to twenty thousand are killed per night including the joeys, which are pulled from the pouches of wounded, dying or dead mothers and their little heads smashed with the boots of the killers.

These simpleminded sadists soaked with beer and whisky feel like heroes, when they make their way home in their Landrovers, from which are hanging dozens of dead or dying kangaroos.

The Australians are not keen on Skippy meat - worm nests (Dirofilaria roemeri) as Dr. Paul Hopwood from the University of Sydney has put it - therefore the international meat mafia is trying to introduce the product in Europe.

However, at this very moment the European Community is sitting on an unsellable meat mountain of 700 000 metric tons, because of the BSE fright and once the conservation costs go over the actual meat value, it will have to be destroyed.

The same thing is going to happen to the kangaroo meat-pushers; as soon as the public is informed that this often "fevered" meat can also carry toxoplasma, viral diseases, salmonellosis or gangrene and that there is never a post-mortem inspection carried out by an independent meat hygienist. A virus might also be the cause of the Choiroid blindness epidemic amongst the animals in NSW and nobody knows how this might effect humans if they consume such meat.

Cooking it 'well done' would probably reduce the risk, but then kangaroo meat becomes virtually inedible. For anybody in his or her right mind, there is only one thing left to do: stay away from it.

Nobody that I know would think about kangaroo meat for consumption or even feed it to a cat or dog.

I have been a number of times to Australia. I just love Sydney, the wonderful people there, the climate, the excellent Australian wines, just everything - but I will not return as long as the kangaroo massacres go on. Quite to the contrary, I will advise the European public about the horror and start a "discourage tourism to Australia" campaign.

With the disease information, I will try to spoil the appetite for kangaroo meat of potential restaurant goers in Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and Belgium - where the meat mafia is trying very hard to cash in on the BSE disaster by getting a foothold for kangaroo meat. Furthermore, I propose a boycott for all Australian goods - until this scandal is brought to an end. Having a good number of friends in Australia, I know that the Australian public is not at all in agreement with the horror methods of the spotlight-massacre-rowdies and I am confident, that with local and international pressure this shameful 'business' will be stopped, some day.

For pessimists it might be of interest that 4 1/2 years ago when the new Catholic Catechism was published, I - as a Catholic - protested vehemently against three anti-animal paragraphs in the book, as of the first day. Many people wrote to me that it was useless - the Vatican is a giant and would never accept to change a single word.

However the appeals for protests have been followed worldwide and at present time the Catechism is being revised. As the English Guardian reported: "Showing a responsiveness to public pressure is not usually associated with the Vatican".

So let's get together and do a similar exercise for the helpless, innocent kangaroos, which Australia once proudly chose as its national emblem.

STOP PRESS: A documentary on the kangaroo massacre shown on TV has caused an uproar by German animal defenders.