The dusk expedition comes at the start of a three-day legal challenge to the planned cull and days after new details of the controversial conservation effort were released by government officials under freedom of information rules.

More than 80 pages of records published by the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate show expenditure on kangaroo management in the ACT reached $244,750 in 2011-12, excluding funds spent on planning culls and other operational resources.

In 2010-11, that total cost was $243,118, as 2439 kangaroos were killed.

An additional $7271 was spent last year on range finders for shooters, as well as $576 on dart gun materials.

Funds paid to a company engaged to carry out kangaroo culling fell to $51,909 last year, down from a 2011 peak of $116,578.

The documents show the funding was paid in a lump sum based on the number of animals culled.

More than 25 licences to kill are included in the release, outlining the number of eastern greys that can be shot and killed at specified locations.

Conditions for the licences require ACT Policing officers and media liaison to be advised at 3pm on the day shooting will take place.

Shooters named on the government licences are required to follow conditions including that they fire away from adjacent roadways and houses near to the nature reserves.

One licence outlines inspections of the nominated nature reserves by senior police officers and handwritten instructions requiring ''all shooting activities to be conducted with public safety in mind''.

Regional Friends of Wildlife ACT spokesman Philip Machin called on the territory government on Tuesday to produce evidence that the annual cull provided any ecological benefit for the environment.

"If it cannot do that, one has to ask how the government can issue licences to kill protected native species without any evidence of harm or benefit," he said.

"That also raises questions of good governance and accountability for public monies spent.

"Unfortunately, neither [Territory and Municipal Services Minister Shane Rattenbury] nor any TAMS functionary, after five years of killing, has been able to produce evaluation, monitoring or any evidence besides 'trust me' that killing kangaroos addresses or solves any problem in threatened temperate grassland ecosystem.

"This is apart from the threats and mistreatment of the kangaroo population itself.''

Regional Friends of Wildlife said the government should explain why sheep and cattle are brought onto sensitive nature reserves where kangaroos are killed or why officers did not address the burden of heavy weed growth that could damage grasslands and the habitat of animals.

The cull had been scheduled to begin on May 14, with two shooters working at unspecified times until the end of July.

Animal Liberation ACT won a suspension until the tribunal could hear a challenge to the validity of a licence issued by the conservator of flora and fauna to conduct the cull.

The cull was also delayed last year with the tribunal eventually ruling it could proceed, but with its total numbers reduced.