Thursday, January 1, 2009

Kangaroos Don't Fart

I found this in the New York Times Magazine's year in ideas feature, kangaroos don't fart so they're good for the environment.
Of all the ideas developed to combat the climate crisis, George Wilson of Australian Wildlife Services may have the least intuitive: eating more kangaroos. In a paper published in June by the U.S.-based Society for Conservation Biology, however, he explains that 11 percent of Australia’s total greenhouse-gas emissions come from the methane produced by the rumen of cattle and sheep. “It’s been long known that kangaroos don’t produce methane,” Wilson says, noting that kangaroos’ stomachs have different microorganisms to ferment their food. “I began to speculate, What if we managed the kangaroo population up and the cattle population down?”

Kangaroo is a specialty meat, gamy in taste, that is already available in some restaurants and many grocery stores in Australia. Wilson calculated that if by 2020 the kangaroo population was managed upward from its current 35 million to 175 million — and if Australia could remove 36 million sheep and 7 million cattle from production — the country would see a reduction of 16 megatons of greenhouse-gas emissions, 3 percent of its national total.

I'm telling you right now, the moment I see some 'roo a menu I'm going to be ordering it. I'm thinking of starting a kangaroo farm to take advantage of people who want to eat green but not necessarily only eat greens. For those not interested in being green I could set up some sort of prarie land and allow hunters on the property for a fee so they can shoot their own 'roo. I'm telling ya I'm going to be the kangaroo version of Ted Turner. As an added bonus, I'll bet I'd get a chance to feel inside a kangaroo pouch which is a lifelong dream.

2 comments:

Mike Karr said...

Kangaroo ain't bad at all. Like a good beef steak with just a hint of natural spice. Better than buffalo.

KC Hop Head said...

Go UMKC Roo's. Don't eat us.