"We are looking at an imminent wildlife disaster of unprecedented proportions in Victoria. The situation is growing so serious for species, especially kangaroos, that I cannot keep up with the calls I receive for help and our volunteers are stretched to the limits on the frontiers of encroaching suburbia, dealing with a sort of 'animal apocalypse'. Wildlife corridors are the only answer, but Mr Madden, the Minister for Planning's plans, should he succeed in getting them through parliament, would cut off this final escape from extinction." (Maryland Wilson, Australian Wildlife Protection Council, July 14, 2009.)
“Avoid culling roos for development by planning wildlife corridors,” says Craig Thomson, AWPC’s new Wildlife Planning Officer. In the face of state planning avoidance of obligation towards wildlife, Mr Thomson and AWPC want to crowdfund the purchase of private land to preserve wildlife corridors from being fenced off by farmers or built over by suburbia. The situation is increasingly dire for kangaroos and koalas particularly. Please consider helping this initiative. Contact details at end of article.
Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, announced today (June 30, 2015) that Queensland LNP Senator Barry O’Sullivan will have a singular focus when he spearheads an Australian government trade delegation to China to try to seal the deal on kangaroo meat exports. #kangaroo #exploitation. The Trans Pacific Partnership agreements, if they go through, would worsen the already terrible situation of many Australian native animals and could provoke species extinctions.
5 June 2015 is World Environment Day, but you wouldn't know it in Australia as State and Federal Governments pave the way for inappropriate and highly environmentally damaging land-clearing. This week media reports have detailed the Federal Government's approval for significant clearing of Critically Endangered woodlands in the Hunter Valley and lack of oversight on potentially illegal broad-scale clearing in Cape York, permitted by the former Queensland Government in direct contravention of national environment law.
On 22 February 2012 former Premier Ted Baillieu issued a change in the Administration of Acts under a General Order. He allocated sections of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and sections of the Wildlife Act 1975 to Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh. These sections ‘legally’ paved the way for a commercial kangaroo killing industry to be re-introduced into Victoria, after having been banned for many good reasons in 1982.
As human overpopulation in Victoria Australia fuels new sprawling suburbs, kangaroos are being continually deprived of habitat and pushed out into roads. There is an ongoing pantomime to pretend that it is not the human population, but the kangaroo population that is making new impositions on the environment. Culls are called for and, not unexpectedly, country MPs are trying to win votes from the fringes by calling for a commercial kangaroo meat processing industry. Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Counsel, has leapt into the breach to defend kangaroos. Among other things she has said that it is inappropriate for the Minister for Agriculture to make decisions affecting wildlife. She has also repeated her call for wildlife corridors.
75% of Victorians think that shooting of native water birds should be banned. 91% of people living in Melbourne don't want shooting and 77% in the country agree. The Australian Wildlife Protection Council believe that the Department of Primary Industries desire to normalise game hunting in Victoria is motivated by short term economics (monetary gain through shooting licenses and permits), not public opinion, animal welfare, or any conservation efforts. The Australia Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) opposes any ‘use’ of wildlife, particularly lethal use. Native animals need to be protected in Victoria, with no exceptions. 
Human exposure to 1080 is very severely restricted by law, for obvious reasons. The same does not apply to other species in baited areas. The major animal welfare concern over the use of 1080 relates to its extreme cruelty and its lack of an antidote. The major environmental concern relates to its effects on non target animals, either through ingestion of baits or by secondary poisoning. Article by Sheila Newman with Maryland Wilson, President, 
Letter from Australian Wildlife Protection Council to RSPCA: "We seek your help to insist that appropriate action be taken against the perpetrators of cruelty committed vs a Fraser Island Dingo. Freedom of Information reveals Dingo Necropsy Report of a cruel horrific death on a healthy male dingo. This cruelty has been dismissed. The tragedy was entirely preventable and is this not what the RSPCA is all about? Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?" Thanks to the 
Randy possums? breeding like rabbits? $160,000 of rate payers money for intrusive experimental possum birth control?" Maryland Wilson of the 
Response to Planning Minister Justin Madden's undemocratic and destructive goals and values in his Draft Planning and Environment Amendment (GAIC) Bill by one of Australia's oldest organisations dedicated to native animals.
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