We talk about ‘quality of life’ as if life itself was not enough. We seriously consider abortion and euthanasia in the light of quality of life, not in the light of the amazing gift that is life itself.

The modern choice of childlessness denies the value of generative life as opposed to the value of the unitary life. It does not recognise the mind-expanding effects of raising the next generation, of seeing the genetic pattern repeated and enhanced as life weaves its marvellous miracle.

Jewish people, whose history is a long dark night of persecution starred with a few windows of light only, have more reason than most to think about the nature and value of life. Hence their celebratory toast: La Chayam! To Life! They actively celebrate the gift of life. When all else is gone but the gift of life, you are still blessed.

We deal negligently with the lives of other species with which we come in contact, lives which are every bit as important as ours in terms of the environment in which we live. It is, for instance, only very recently that farmers have been mandated to provide pain relief at lamb marking and cattle castration.

There is little recognition that animals have families and rituals as we have. Cockatoos name their young; crows conduct funeral rites for their dead. Nor is there acknowledgement that other species grieve as we do. Recent media coverage of a whale carrying her dead calf for a week before finally accepting its death was a surprise to many.

Currently, the lives of one species in NSW have been cast to the wolves with no consideration of what removal of regulatory controls might unleash.

Drought does dreadful things to man and beast and I feel for those farmers struggling to keep stock alive while fodder prices go through the roof.

However, kangaroos, starving like domestic stock, are being forced into the open in their search for food and have become prey to shooters – shooters who do not understand that they are only seeing those who, hitherto, have had no need to be visible, not a great explosion in the kangaroo population.

Kangaroo shooting by non-professionals is wreaking havoc. Alpha males who defend small family groups are being targeted (too big to miss) which leaves females at the mercy of importunate younger males kept in line by the alpha. Joeys too small to leave the pouch die horribly in pouches of shot does. At-foot joeys die of starvation and loneliness. Wounded animals die of infection in great pain.

Those who escape are caught in fences they would have cleared had they not been in a blind panic. Others are run down on nearby roads in their escape, despite the law that says you can't shoot within 1.5kms of a public road. Nor can you shoot within rifle distance of a dwelling even though a friend has to ring the police every time 'spotlighters' are abroad in the paddock behind her house.

For the six little orphans in my kitchen as a result of this shooting onslaught, I raise my glass in toast with the words:  Le Chayam! To Life!