Canberra: Animal rights campaigners protested a plan to shoot more than 3,000 kangaroos on the fringes of Australia's national capital, as authorities said yesterday the marsupials have become too numerous and risk starvation.
The Defence Department wants to hire professional shooters to cull the kangaroos - Australia's national symbol, which feature in the country's coat of arms - at two of its properties on the outskirts of Canberra.
Canberra's local administration, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government, is expected to decide this week whether to approve the cull, government spokeswoman Yersheena Nichols said.
ACT Animal Liberation president Mary Hayes warned the cull would earn the local government an international reputation for cruelty.
'Weeds'
"It is a very cruel, violent way to treat animals,' she told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Hayes said the kangaroos were being treated "as if they were weeds to be mown or pulled out". Under the plan, 3,200 of the common eastern gray kangaroos, which can grow as big as a human, will be shot by July.
Queensland state Kangaroo Protection Coalition activist Pat O'Brien rejected the government's argument that the kangaroos risked starvation if they were not killed. "This is just an excuse to kill them," he said.
Scientists soon plan to test an oral contraceptive developed for kangaroos in an attempt to thin their numbers at one of the sites in suburban Belconnen, government ecologist Don Fletcher said.
