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EU may ban Australia's kangaroo exports 15 May 2009

Kangaroo exports are under threat in Europe after the appearance of a report critical of hygiene practices in the kangaroo meat industry.
EU may ban Australia's kangaroo exports
The European Union commissioned the report by Animal Liberation on health standards, welfare issues and the sustainability of kangaroo harvesting.
 
Russia imposed a ban on kangaroo meat from three Australian processing plants last year after it found antibiotics in carcasses.
NSW Animal Liberation director Mark Pearson said the report for the EU, A Shot in the Dark, revealed that E. coli and salmonella bacteria had been found in some kangaroo carcasses intended for human consumption.
 
It was impossible to regulate hygienic practices for the three to five million kangaroos harvested each year, Pearson said on Friday.
"Any export abattoir must have extremely high standards of hygiene where animals are brought in, slaughtered and processed," he told AAP.
 
The author of the report, Dr Ben-Ami, said the health practices of the kangaroo industry were poor because it was not held to the same standards as the rest of Australia's meat industry.
 
"If you take any of the other meat industry products - chicken, cattle, sheep - these are herdable animals and therefore they are collected and processed in meat-processing plants under hygienic and regulated conditions, which is just not the case of kangaroo and probably never will be," Dr Ben-Ami said.
 
The kangaroo industry is worth AUS$200 million a year to Australia, with meat exported to 27 countries.
More than 80 per cent of the export product goes to Russia and Europe.
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