‘Like a war zone’: The multimillion-dollar industry killing off Australia’s kangaroos

Europe’s demand for kangaroo meat and pelts is fuelling the slaughter of millions of the iconic marsupial, often illegally, in the dead of night. Jane Dalton delves into one of Australia’s most divisive issues

Australia’s relationship with its own emblem is complex

The first you know is being woken up by the enormous crack of the high-powered rifle and the spotlight through your bedroom window, and then it’s on: everything you love and have worked for ripped out from under you, the only thing to do is to rigorously gather evidence,” says Greg Keightley.

“So you force yourself to walk out the front door and film the precious beings you call family being massacred in the most macabre, cruel, heartbreaking ways. How do we do that? I don’t really know but someone has to – don’t they?”

For more than a decade, Keightley and his partner Diane Smith have lived in “essentially a war zone” next to their New South Wales home, which shares a boundary with a property that allows the shooting.