Cuphandle so rightly complains about a farmer wanting to shoot black swans on his property because they are eating some of his crop.
The shooting borders on evil...and I think its the mentality and the greed.

Ive worked on farms and everything I saw on those farms was towards the dollar and certainly not to preserving the environment.

Here's a list of some of the things I saw...perhaps one day the federal government will step in a establish a Royal Commission for surely many farmers are part of the destruction of the world climate.

1. Ive seen pups drowned because the farmer was too lazy to find them homes
2. Ive seen farm dogs kicked and abused and starved even when the farmer depends on them
3. Ive seen run-off from feedlots pour down into creeks then on into town water supplies and create algae blooms in dams that people drink from...algae blooms that hang around for years and years and years
4. Ive seen farms that are nothing more than rubbish tips for old chemical drums, old cars, old tractors, old implements, farmhouse rubbish and trash
5. Ive known farmers to shoot protected species without permits.
One farmer I worked with had a wedgetail eagle in his freezer waiting to be taken for stuffing
6. Ive seen cattle and horses left to burn in the open sun because farmers were too lazy and too cheap to grow or erect shade to easy the suffering in summer.
Australias farmers need to be observed very closely.
Governments need access to their land for inspections.
Their land needs to be confiscated if they fail to maintain respect for it and the animal life on it.
Give twenty years... and this great, open, wonderful land will be lost to rising salt and pollution and the devastation of woodlands and animals and birdlife if something is not done.
Does Kevin Rudd PM have a plan?
We need to know what the farmers are doing right now.

You made some very interesting points. I was unaware that the farmers did those things. Actually I'm disgusted that the government has not already done something about this. Its funny because with the drought all farmers seem sincere and worried about their crops, their animals etc. I don't believe in animal cruelty and I believe anyone guilty of doing so should be reported.

Halo.
Not all farmers are like this, this we know.
Many do care.
Others are the hillbillie type who dont.
Many farms I believe are chemical dumps for partially filled, unwanted chemical drums that go into pits or have their contents tipped out into the holes then covered over.
A farm I worked on had the house rubbish tip right next to the creek that ran into the local dam (town population over 8,000).
What he put in the tip would receive run-off in rain and down into the creek it all went.
No government officials ever went to his farm and inspected to see if he was a good farmer.

Where are the farm inspectors?

He likewise frequently kicked the stuffing out of his barking dogs.
A bad man kicks a tied up dog because he's in a rotten mood.

Gibo

To many of us, farmers are a different species. Somehow they are conditioned and indifferent to the inhumane treatment they perpetrate on their livestock and any other species which gets in the way of the economic factor.

We can't forget the poultry farmer either and the battery hens - many of these critters have not a feather on them. Debeaked and pumped with antibiotics, their entire short miserable lives are spent in a cage where they can't even turn around. But who cares?

Then we have the turkey in Australia. They're bred so fat that their legs give way; too fat to mate so they are artificially inseminated. I'm told the turkeys try to run in terror but there's nowhere to hide.

Let's get on to cattle. Many of these too are artificially inseminated in a disgusting manner - bulls are cruelly electroejaculated or forced over a fake vagina. The female cow, fully conscious, can look forward to having her ovaries cut out before she too is released from a crush and sent packing.

On the brighter side this month, the RSPCA says a 17-month jail term for a Riverina man convicted of animal cruelty is a warning for all farmers.

Paul Matthew Hamilton was sentenced in Wagga Wagga local court yesterday on charges dating back to 2005 involving thousands of stock.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/15/2304043.htm

Of course we've not heard much about the pig farmer in WA who was caught out last year where his pigs were crammed into a pen so tightly they had to stand on top of each other, swimming in excrement and urine. They were so hungry they'd resorted to cannibalism.

Institutionalised, indescribable cruelty of livestock occurs every day in Australia so does the vandalising of our eco-systems by this industry but alas, 'good' men will say nothing Gibo.

Just what we needed - a bit of light relief!

This should be an entertaining gathering of frootloops, if anybody bites :)

Well said CJ. Though we shouldn't be surprised that the farms that gibo visits are populated by bizarre types.

It's just unfortunate this is given as a legitimate example.

The farmers-vs-the-environment argument is a tired, simple, and yes, stupid one. I've known more farmers who are at least part environmentalist than those who aren't.