Update:

Great news !

The experiment has been abandoned as the research student has withdrawn his application for the project !

The University of Wollongong intends to confine six kangaroos in a small cage for nine months, to study their methane release as part of a PhD experiment on global warming, despite the fact that the same experiment was done 40 years ago. After the experiment, the kangaroos are to be killed. The University might also repeat this experiment on wombats. The purpose of this experiment stems from the idea that methane emissions could be reduced by replacing cattle in rangelands with kangaroos, as kangaroos produce little methane, a fact that has already been investigated and acknowledged. A spokesperson for the University has said that no decision has been made by the ethics committee about using kangaroos for this experiment, and that the matter is still under consideration. Please convince them to scrap this plan.

Photo credit: Anne Keiser