November 11, 2025 • 6 mins
Our Australian correspondent talks about Wallabies, why Americans love feral goat meat, and his electrifying dislike of cats - both feral and domestic!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's our guy in Australia. Let's not mention Italy. Don't
mention the war, can I say that? Don't The Italians
Chris Russell famous for having tanks that only had a
reverse gear in the Second World War.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, they had four reverse gears apparently and only one
forward because however he used the forward one.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, the Italian forwards used their forward gear against your lot.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh, we certainly got into trouble and you know, I
know part of it is an injury injury issues, but
we're just not there and it's very look as you know,
we keep on hanging a hat on hope when we
get a good win like we did against South Africa
that in that first game, but you know, it's just
hopeless situation. And we've lost five now out of our
(00:43):
last six. We've got Ireland this weekend. We've lost Will Skelton,
of course, who's one of our star players. He's sprained
his ankle over the weekend, so he's not going to
be playing. So I don't know where we go, Jamie.
My I just go up and down. And it's because
I've become such a devotee of rugby league because at
least I can stop being despondent about rugby league.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, I did watch a wee bit of your Ossie
rugby league team playing England. My goodness that Reese Walsh
is a brilliant rugby player. He would be great on
air code. Anyhow, let's move on. I want to talk
about this one. This surprises me. Goat meat the only
acceptable red meat to many Americans. That surprises me.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, well that's it. And marry Americans. They're very idealistic
about their meat. And for many Americans, particularly on the coast,
the only meat they'll consider consuming as before they go
vegetarian is goat meat because they see it wild caught
rangeland goats as coming into the worms of something that's sustainable,
(01:48):
and certainly is. I mean. I was talked to a
farmer out near loud in western New South Wales, the
other side of the Darling River. He just caught six
thousand goats to pay for a new earing shed he
put up. He said, it's like the magic pudding. He said,
you won't even see where they'd be. Next year there'll
be six thousand new ones. And of course they are
(02:09):
very sustainable, and the Americans are very conscious of that.
And these conscious but they're trying to buy a food
consistent with all their ethical, environmental and ethical values. And
of course we've run into the situation now where this
good money being made out of goost. So people are saying, oh,
we want to start breeding them and want to be
better ones that are going to put more weight on
(02:29):
and feed them better. As soon as we start to
do that, the Americans are going to say, no, sorry,
not instant anymore. It's no longer a natural production system,
and that's the main reason we're happy to buy them,
so we'll go on becoming vegetarians instead. So we've got
to have that dilemma. I remember your venison producers in
the South Island face the same thing when I came
(02:50):
and spoke at a venison conference there some years ago,
and someone had built a wintering shed up in the
hills there, and the New Zealand Vedicon people made him
pull it down because it didn't sit with their image
of sort of freezing stags up on top of the hillside,
you know, not being able to get warm and all
the rest of it, but being wild.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, give me a bit of feral venison meat any
day over the goat meat anyhow, something you do hate,
Chris Russell, you hate seeing your wallabies lose. But you're
getting used to that. I guess you've been doing it
for about three or four decades in a row. Now
you hate feral cats, but you even hate the domesticated moggie.
You're such a cruel man.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh yeah, Well, you know it's not the cats, it's
the owners of the problem, because I've yetnam meet a
cat owner who thinks that their cats are hunters. They
all think they're happy little things that sit by the
fire all day and never go out. But in Christmas Island,
which is an island belonging to Australia, but it's just
off the coast of Indonesia, effectively northwest of Western Australia,
(03:53):
they've had the most successful eradication program against cats. They
got rid of now percent of their cats and they're
claiming that by the end of next year they will
have got rid of all of the cats. So that's
a generation just by putting money into every type of
method to shoot, poison, whatever we need to do to
get rid of them. There are many Christmas Island is
(04:16):
a very unique spot naturally, because there's so many species
over there which only exist on Christmas Island, and yet
particularly in the case of lizards, the wildcats have more
or less eaten them to extinction. The feral cats can
kill an estimate one point five billion navy animals in
Australia every year, one point five billion. Now Christmas Islands
(04:40):
one hundred and thirty five square kilometers, and they've really
done well on making sure that they've saved They have
lost some species completely, but they've saved so many species
over the years through their eradication program, so good luck
to them. I hope that they're successful. Of course they
get the same complaints from people saying, oh no, why
(05:02):
can't we have our pressous little cats on the island,
But you're just not allowed to. And they actually have
the cat police who walk around the island. If they
find an unregistered cat that's been brought in since the band,
they'll just pick it up, take it away and kill it.
And very successful, very effective. Thousands of cats have been
culled and so they're hopeful that this is going to
(05:24):
be success. Well, bring it on, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
In that Chris Russell, you were mentioning the cat police,
you are truly the Cat Police of the Northern Suburbs
of Sydney. You've got an electric fence around your boundary
fence to keep the cats.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Out, Well, I do it. It works very well, just
one wire and on earth around the top of my
paling fence in the backyard. Haven't had any cat problems
in here since, and the neighbors all accept just one
of those weird things about Chris, but just proves the
fact that without that fence, those cats at night will
be in my garden eating, catching lizards, killing small birds,
(05:58):
all the things that cats, but very effective. Six thousand
volts is are pretty good to Terran Chris.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
What happens if the kid next door kicks us football
over your fence and jumps.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Over to get it over the fence, and the worst
that would happen that they get a little ping off
the top of a six thousand old fence like they
would out of an electric fence on a dairy. So
it's not going to worry them, and it's certainly legal,
and it's I think my electric fence general will do
six kilometers, well, I've only got it doing about one
hundred meters, so it's very good.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, I can tell you from my farming days. Six
thousand vaults would give you a fair whack. I wouldn't
want to be a cat hanging around your place. Chris Russell.
Good luck against Ireland, you might need it. I will
catch you again, same time, same place, next week.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No worry, Shami,
He's our guy in Australia. Let's not mention Italy. Don't
mention the war, can I say that? Don't The Italians
Chris Russell famous for having tanks that only had a
reverse gear in the Second World War.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, they had four reverse gears apparently and only one
forward because however he used the forward one.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, the Italian forwards used their forward gear against your lot.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh, we certainly got into trouble and you know, I
know part of it is an injury injury issues, but
we're just not there and it's very look as you know,
we keep on hanging a hat on hope when we
get a good win like we did against South Africa
that in that first game, but you know, it's just
hopeless situation. And we've lost five now out of our
(00:43):
last six. We've got Ireland this weekend. We've lost Will Skelton,
of course, who's one of our star players. He's sprained
his ankle over the weekend, so he's not going to
be playing. So I don't know where we go, Jamie.
My I just go up and down. And it's because
I've become such a devotee of rugby league because at
least I can stop being despondent about rugby league.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, I did watch a wee bit of your Ossie
rugby league team playing England. My goodness that Reese Walsh
is a brilliant rugby player. He would be great on
air code. Anyhow, let's move on. I want to talk
about this one. This surprises me. Goat meat the only
acceptable red meat to many Americans. That surprises me.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, well that's it. And marry Americans. They're very idealistic
about their meat. And for many Americans, particularly on the coast,
the only meat they'll consider consuming as before they go
vegetarian is goat meat because they see it wild caught
rangeland goats as coming into the worms of something that's sustainable,
(01:48):
and certainly is. I mean. I was talked to a
farmer out near loud in western New South Wales, the
other side of the Darling River. He just caught six
thousand goats to pay for a new earing shed he
put up. He said, it's like the magic pudding. He said,
you won't even see where they'd be. Next year there'll
be six thousand new ones. And of course they are
(02:09):
very sustainable, and the Americans are very conscious of that.
And these conscious but they're trying to buy a food
consistent with all their ethical, environmental and ethical values. And
of course we've run into the situation now where this
good money being made out of goost. So people are saying, oh,
we want to start breeding them and want to be
better ones that are going to put more weight on
(02:29):
and feed them better. As soon as we start to
do that, the Americans are going to say, no, sorry,
not instant anymore. It's no longer a natural production system,
and that's the main reason we're happy to buy them,
so we'll go on becoming vegetarians instead. So we've got
to have that dilemma. I remember your venison producers in
the South Island face the same thing when I came
(02:50):
and spoke at a venison conference there some years ago,
and someone had built a wintering shed up in the
hills there, and the New Zealand Vedicon people made him
pull it down because it didn't sit with their image
of sort of freezing stags up on top of the hillside,
you know, not being able to get warm and all
the rest of it, but being wild.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, give me a bit of feral venison meat any
day over the goat meat anyhow, something you do hate,
Chris Russell, you hate seeing your wallabies lose. But you're
getting used to that. I guess you've been doing it
for about three or four decades in a row. Now
you hate feral cats, but you even hate the domesticated moggie.
You're such a cruel man.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh yeah, Well, you know it's not the cats, it's
the owners of the problem, because I've yetnam meet a
cat owner who thinks that their cats are hunters. They
all think they're happy little things that sit by the
fire all day and never go out. But in Christmas Island,
which is an island belonging to Australia, but it's just
off the coast of Indonesia, effectively northwest of Western Australia,
(03:53):
they've had the most successful eradication program against cats. They
got rid of now percent of their cats and they're
claiming that by the end of next year they will
have got rid of all of the cats. So that's
a generation just by putting money into every type of
method to shoot, poison, whatever we need to do to
get rid of them. There are many Christmas Island is
(04:16):
a very unique spot naturally, because there's so many species
over there which only exist on Christmas Island, and yet
particularly in the case of lizards, the wildcats have more
or less eaten them to extinction. The feral cats can
kill an estimate one point five billion navy animals in
Australia every year, one point five billion. Now Christmas Islands
(04:40):
one hundred and thirty five square kilometers, and they've really
done well on making sure that they've saved They have
lost some species completely, but they've saved so many species
over the years through their eradication program, so good luck
to them. I hope that they're successful. Of course they
get the same complaints from people saying, oh no, why
(05:02):
can't we have our pressous little cats on the island,
But you're just not allowed to. And they actually have
the cat police who walk around the island. If they
find an unregistered cat that's been brought in since the band,
they'll just pick it up, take it away and kill it.
And very successful, very effective. Thousands of cats have been
culled and so they're hopeful that this is going to
(05:24):
be success. Well, bring it on, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
In that Chris Russell, you were mentioning the cat police,
you are truly the Cat Police of the Northern Suburbs
of Sydney. You've got an electric fence around your boundary
fence to keep the cats.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Out, Well, I do it. It works very well, just
one wire and on earth around the top of my
paling fence in the backyard. Haven't had any cat problems
in here since, and the neighbors all accept just one
of those weird things about Chris, but just proves the
fact that without that fence, those cats at night will
be in my garden eating, catching lizards, killing small birds,
(05:58):
all the things that cats, but very effective. Six thousand
volts is are pretty good to Terran Chris.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
What happens if the kid next door kicks us football
over your fence and jumps.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Over to get it over the fence, and the worst
that would happen that they get a little ping off
the top of a six thousand old fence like they
would out of an electric fence on a dairy. So
it's not going to worry them, and it's certainly legal,
and it's I think my electric fence general will do
six kilometers, well, I've only got it doing about one
hundred meters, so it's very good.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, I can tell you from my farming days. Six
thousand vaults would give you a fair whack. I wouldn't
want to be a cat hanging around your place. Chris Russell.
Good luck against Ireland, you might need it. I will
catch you again, same time, same place, next week.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No worry, Shami,
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