By Najmi Mamat and Syakir Nizam
GOMBAK, 14 September 2016 “ Students and lecturers from the Department of Communication, IIUM, today had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Associate Professor Dr. Peter Simmons from the School of Communication and Creative Industries of Charles Sturt University Australia on the subject, œTransparency and Communication Can Improve Wildlife Welfare Outcomes: The Case of Kangaroos.
Dr. Simmons said, œThe point I am making here is that decisions about the future of these animals and how they should be treated and looked after, are made without the voice of the people who think that killing of these animals should be the last resort.
œWhen you get a number of different voices, when you get people other than just decision makers that matter, you will get better outcomes on welfare for the animals. So, animal welfare improves when we make a decision that kind of affect them when there’s transparency in the handling of the issue, and not just based solely on the concern for economic considerations, he added.
Dr. Simmons, who gave the presentation after carrying out a systematic study of peoples attitude to cull kangaroos in Australia, said this was not new to him and he viewed that this issue was really vital as “we need people to come out with their voices openly on animal conservation”.
He expressed the hope that there would be greater awareness created among the Australian public towards conservation of kangaroos through open discussions and communication; that “the animal be preserved, unharmed, and those ideas supported, making people believe that it is something worthwhile” even though he thought that this process might take time for some people to arrive at that position.
One of the audiences, Siti Nur Atiqah, said, œThe talk has increased my knowledge about the need for communication to be understood in making the public aware of such an important issue on the conservation of animals. I believe in the context of Malaysia, this issue is still new and we can raise awareness on preserving of wild animals. ***