Every year, more than one million native animals are legally killed across Australia under government-issued licences—animals that are supposed to be protected by law. Wombats and rainbow lorikeets are shot. Pademelons and possums are poisoned. Dingoes are trapped and killed. This not only inflicts immense suffering and leaves young animals orphaned, but it also damages fragile ecosystems.
The justification is almost always “conflict”: competition with livestock for pasture or water, damage to fences and crops, predation on farm animals, or simply being seen as a nuisance. Killing has become the default response.
Our report Licence to Kill: The shocking scale of licensed wildlife killing in Australia lays bare the extent of this crisis. In 2023 alone, more than 1.2 million native animals were authorised for killing. Between 2021–2023, the total exceeded 4.5 million. These numbers don’t even include the unlimited Bennett’s wallabies, Tasmanian pademelons and brushtail possums killed each year in Tasmania, which add hundreds of thousands more.
Worse still, because of exemptions and weak reporting, the true toll is even higher—many animals, such as dingoes, can be killed without any licence at all, leaving no record of their death. If governments continue to allow this scale of destruction, iconic species like kangaroos and cockatoos could vanish from some of our landscapes.
Killing wildlife doesn’t solve conflict—it perpetuates it. Humane, non-lethal tools are not only kinder but often more effective. These include wildlife-friendly netting, wombat gates and fences, deterrents that use sound, light or scent, and predator-smart farming practices with guardian animals.
We’ve shown these solutions work: ending the licensed shooting of flying-foxes by helping fruit growers shift to wildlife-friendly netting, and supporting sheep and cattle farmers with non-lethal dingo management through our Predator Smart Farming guide.
We are calling for an end to licensed killing of native animals and urgent reform of the laws that make it too easy to obtain a licence. Governments must prioritise non-lethal alternatives and modern, humane approaches to managing conflict. Coexistence is possible—and essential.
Ask your Ministers to stop allowing landholders to kill native wildlife.
Support our work so we can continue to push for reform, promote non-lethal tools, and protect wildlife from cruelty.
Together we can build a future where people and wildlife share the land in balance.
Read the Licence to Kill report here
For years now, supporters like you have been calling on Victoria to stop the senseless killing of dingoes on private land—at last we have some exciting news to share with you. On 14 March…
Human-wildlife coexistence is a focus of Humane Society International Australia’s wildlife campaigns. Coexistence means to exist together, to share landscapes and behave in ways that are mutually respectful and peaceful. Coexistence aims to balance…
You’d be hard-pressed to find an animal as quintessentially Aussie as the wombat – these tough, clever and surprisingly cheeky animals represent everything we love about this country’s wildlife. Despite this, however, wombats are…
Join us as a monthly donor and commit to making a better world for animals
