Australia Day 2013

Google portrays an adorably drawn Eastern Gray Kangaroo and her joey on its Aussie homepage to commemorate Australia Day. Too bad 99% of Australians don't give a rat's ass about how roos and wallabies are slaughtered ('culled', in bureaucratic-speak) when land their mobs have migrated through for thousands of years gets sucked into bland, single-story-home suburban sprawl and the national symbol becomes a nuisance, a pest, vermin to be destroyed -- and always 'for their own good'. Local councils employ shooters to slaughter these 'problem' animal populations, usually in the dead of night so their butchery goes unseen.

Volunteer wildlife organisations and hearty locals do what they can to bring attention to these mass killings, usually by sitting vigil for nights on end and shaming decision-makers via local media. Sometimes the councils back down, sometimes they don't. Killing is too cost-efficient to be reconsidered. The relocation of these amazing creatures is 'too much hard work', to use Aussie vernacular.

It's a national disgrace, but tra la la la la la ... have another beer, mate, she'll be right. Happy 'stralia Day!

UPDATE
And then there's this:

As a part of this year’s Australia Day promotion, the burger chain Grill’d is currently advertising a promotional burger called "The Coat of Arms Burger" containing kangaroo and emu meat.

Wildlife Victoria is sharing a petition to encourage Grill’d to remove the option from their menu. The consumption of kangaroo meat is inhumane and misrepresented as a healthy, environmental alternative to livestock meat. The sale of these burgers promotes an industry that orphans countless joeys every year when adult female kangaroos are shot leaving their at-foot juveniles with little chance of survival. The ‘National Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos (Commercial Purposes)’ regards these Juvenile orphans as "waste" and legalises the shooter to kill them with a "forceful blow to the base of the skull sufficient to destroy the functional capacity of the brain".