NSW Police have warned that frozen road kill, including koalas, could be used by protestors as a way of disrupting a car race scheduled for the north of the state.
The Repco World Rally Championship will travel to the Tweed Valley this week in the Australian leg of the WRC.
Superintendent for the Tweed-Byron police Michael Kenny, believes that local protest groups, who claim the rally disrupts animal breeding patterns and local wildlife, may resort to unusual methods of halting the drivers.
Rumours have been circulating throughout the area of protestors lighting fires, people laying across the course and using dead animals as roadblocks. The animal strategy is believed to involve the freezing of dead wildlife in order to make it rock hard.
Protest groups, which include 7th Generation and No Rally, have expressed their anger at the race along with the New South Wales Government’s recent legislation which has guaranteed the race to organisers at the site for the next 20 years.
Race organisers, however, utilise an advanced tracking system similar to GPS to pinpoint any blockages and also to monitor if any wildlife is run over during the event, allowing any injured animals can be located and treated.
While the WRC has faced many protest threats in recent years, this is thought to be the first time a sport has been threatened with a frozen koala.