"Ban kangaroo meat sales!"
The animal rights' organisation GAIA is eager to see a ban on the sale of kangaroo meat. It claims that animals are abused during kangaroo meat production and believes there are public health risks too! Several supermarkets including Aldi and Delhaize have already taken kangaroo off Belgian shelves.
GAIA is launching a Belgian campaign to see the sale of the meat banned. A documentary “Kangaroo: a love-hate story” reveals the scale of animal welfare abuse during meat production. Kangaroos are shot in the wild. Often they are only injured and die a painful death. Animals are cut up where they are shot without any animal welfare supervision. The meat is then transported in open vehicles exposed to dust and insects.
GAIA points to the temperature in the Australian bush and E.coli and salmonella contaminations. It accuses the food industry of removing the traces of bacteria by using acids.
Russia has already closed its borders to Kangaroo imports. Belgium is now the world's biggest importer of kangaroo meat for human consumption. Many of the imports are later re-exported.
Delhaize’s Roel Dekelver notes that his company regularly examines its product range and that the decision to stop kangaroo sales had been on the cards, also because of a lack of demand: "This combined with the GAIA campaign and the images shown that we certainly don't agree with motivated our decision" he says.
