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Kangaroo meat could help cut gas emissions

WASHINGTON: A new study has suggested that replacing much of Australia’s beef and veal with kangaroo meat could significantly cut the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions and save its native terrain.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the study suggests phasing out some 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep from Australian rangelands — semiarid land that doesn’t naturally produce the grass that grazing animals require — and replacing them with kangaroos.

“Because of their unique gut microbes, kangaroos emit much less methane than sheep and cattle,” said lead author George Wilson of Canberra consultancy Australian Wildlife Services. Sheep and cattle are responsible for about 11 per cent of Australian agricultural emissions, according to a government survey. Each cow produces 1.84 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas equivalents a year, and each sheep gives off more than 300 pounds (140 kilograms). Kangaroos, meanwhile, emit less than seven pounds (three kilograms) of greenhouse gases. The study’s proposal could translate into savings of 16 million tonness of greenhouse gases annually — or 3 per cent of Australia’s total emissions. Mr. Wilson estimated that some 30 million kangaroos (including red kangaroos) already roam Australia’s rangelands, where farmers regard them as pests. His proposal calls for the rangelands to be filled with five or six times that number.

Mr. Wilson said the animals could be an asset to farmers, if Australia included agriculture — in which the most methane and nitrous oxide are emitted — in its Emissions Trading Scheme, a system the government is devising to levy charges on greenhouse polluters. — ANI

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