Kangaroos Subject to Cruel Global Warming Experiment

Added by Nigel Shelbourne on March 4, 2011

A cruel university experiment designed to keep kangaroos caged will cause the animals extreme distress, Animal Liberation says.

The study, which is proposed at the University of Wollongong, aims to measure the gas expelled by kangaroos. To achieve this the animals will be kept in a cage 1.3m by 1.7m for nine months.

Mark Pearson, Animal Liberation executive director, said the same experiment had been performed some 40 years ago, and that “for the NSW State Government to approve such a pathetic experiment for someone’s PhD on global warming is unconscionable.”

According to Professor Steve Garlick, who specialises in kangaroo rehabilitation, kangaroos are free-ranging social animals. So to cage them as suggested by the proposed experiment would therefore be “cruel in the extreme.”

In addition, he said, if subject to confinement, kangaroos will be highly stressed and likely to fall victim to a range of disease and illness, making survival unlikely. As a result, any findings from the experiment will be flawed.

However, university spokesman Bernie Goldie said the matter of using the kangaroos for the experiment had not yet been approved by the the ethics committee. “The university fully abides with the various government regulation in place in regards to the use of animals,” he said.