With 85 per cent of this year's culled kangaroos buried in a pit, the nation's peak commercial kangaroo body has said negotiations with the federal government could avoid the annual waste.
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Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia executive officer John Kelly said the expense of putting in place a federal management plan was the greatest barrier to an ACT commercial harvest.
''There is plenty of existing infrastructure for them to go to the commercial market,'' he said.
''I suspect the ACT would find it too expensive - unless the federal government could find some way to incorporate them into the NSW management plan.''
He said NSW was divided into 14 commercial kangaroo zones, with the ACT essentially surrounded by one zone.
Mr Kelly said the dumping of the large majority of the shot kangaroos in a pit was wasteful.
''It's a waste of protein in a protein-starved world,'' he said.
ACT Parks and Conservation director Daniel Iglesias has said the 2012 cull cost about $107 a kangaroo, or $215,000 overall. The previous year the cull of 3400 kangaroos cost about $54 a kangaroo.
He said the ACT's completed cull for this year had achieved its aim, despite falling about 100 short of its 1244 quota. He said 1149 kangaroos were killed, plus 355 joeys, though there was no cull at Mount Painter.
Territory and Municipal Services Minister Shane Rattenbury said the government would not implement a commercial cull, despite the national commercial quota for 2013 of more than 184,000 kangaroos.
Federal statistics show the separate sustainable quota for 2013 is nearly 6 million kangaroos on mainland Australia.
Mr Rattenbury said community members had raised concerns with him about the meat from kangaroos being wasted, but he said the cull was for sustainability only.
''I certainly have a concern that moving to a commercial basis with the necessary investment that would be required to set a commercial operation, that investment would need to be repaid and that would provide a motivation to cull that is not consistent with the government's approach,'' he said.
Mr Iglesias said some of the kangaroo carcasses had this year been used as bait in feral animal control programs and the directorate would be looking to expand that program in future years. with Larissa Nicholson
