Monday 16 March 2009

Councillor Pyne and the wallabies

Cairns Regional Councillor Robert Pyne has attacked the Cairns Post - get in line, I say.

He says that wallaby-sized Cairns Post journalist Roger Dickson, incorrectly portrayed the Division 3 Councillor as wanting to cull the kangaroo relative on the southside of Cairns.

There was substantial backlash over reported comments that the Councillor wanted to get rid of a great number of the animals.

"What I in fact wanted was a strategy to deal with the problem being created by urban expansion," Robert Pyne says.

When Roger Dickson questioned Pyne about the wallaby infiltration, he kept pressing the Councillor for a controversial response. I'm sure that Dickson was fishing for a 'Kill the Kangaroos says Councillor' headline. He kept pushing the Councillor if he would support a cull of the native Wallaby. "But if the recommendation in a report came to that, would you support it?" Dickson quizzed Robert Pyne.

"He asked me three or four times, would I support a cull," Robert Pyne says. "And I don't, but we do need a strategy to manage this, and that is my position," he said. "That doesn't mean with have to kill any animals at all."

Many Cairns suburbs now have wallabies around their properties, due to increased high-density housing being constructed, as former wildlife habitats are cleared.

"As a result of my stance, a report has been prepared calling for a Wildlife Management Strategy for the southern fringe of Cairns City. Hopefully the report will be adopted by Council and something good will come from it," he says.

The report can be viewed online.

As an interesting side note, Pyne infamously culled former Deputy Mayor Terry James, another pint-sized native wildlife, on his succession to the Council table last year.

No comments: