Phillip Machin’s article; ‘Who’s eating the green stuff?’ should be appreciated by animal lovers. It’s good to see facts for a change. However, farmers are farmers and, although kangaroos are something special, they are not always appreciated. But there are ways of controlling them and other wildlife humanely. One of them is the use of the abortion agent RU 486. Legal in Europe (for humans) but until recently banned in Australia on religious grounds, it became known as the morning after pill – and it presents a wonderful way to control wildlife humanely.
It has been successfully used to control field rats in paddy fields in Indonesia. You just make up a bait with the chemical in it (only minute amounts are needed) and sprinkle it around rabbit burrows or wherever undesirable wildlife occurs and feeds. Surely this is better than using poison baits and especially, expensively designed diseases.
I hope this letter stimulates some interest in the use of RU 486 in this way.
Dr Colin Williams
Armidale
