The ACT Government has blocked plans by the Department of Defence to relocate mobs of eastern grey kangaroos from its former naval transmission station site in Belconnen.
Senior ACT Government sources told The Canberra Times the Department of Territory and Municipal Services had scuppered the relocation plan by refusing to grant export permits to Defence for kangaroos to be moved across the ACT border into NSW.
This final impasse in the long-running stand-off between the two governments over management of kangaroo populations at two Defence sites in the ACT means the federal department will now be forced to go ahead with a cull of more than 400 kangaroos at its Belconnen site.
The president of the late Steve Irwin's Queensland-based Wildlife Protection Association, Pat O'Brien, said the Rudd Government and ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope would face "significant national protest action" over the impending kangaroo cull.
"We have spoken to our solicitors and will be investigating a number of legal options. We will also be using our extensive international links to draw the world's attention to this disgraceful political situation," he said.
Mr O'Brien flew from Queensland to Canberra last Friday to meet senior Defence officials, who had previously told him they wanted to discuss details of the proposed relocation operation.
"I got the impression they had run into a brick wall, because instead of discussing the translocation, the bureaucrat I met with kept saying there wasn't much Defence could do if the ACT wouldn't issue the permits.
" He told me, 'We'll just have to face the music and get on with it,' by which he meant killing the kangaroos."
The Canberra Times understands that only minutes after Mr O'Brien left the Defence offices, an environmental consultant advising the department on the relocation was telephoned and told the operation wouldn't be going ahead.
The political row over kangaroo management in the ACT erupted last year.
Defence shelved plans to cull kangaroos at the Belconnen site and the Majura training range and agreed to consider a proposal put forward by Queanbeyan Wildcare volunteers to relocate the animals.
The ambitious plan, which would have been Australia's biggest scientifically supervised wildlife relocation experiment, had the backing of one of Australia's top kangaroo ecologists.
Director of the University of NSW Arid Zone research station Dr David Croft described the plan as "well-researched", with the potential to deliver breakthrough science on wildlife management.
The relocation plan was strongly opposed by ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope and a number of scientists employed by the ACT Government as environmental consultants.
A spokeswoman for the Chief Minister said the ACT Government had a long-standing policy of not supporting translocation of kangaroos.
"Defence is aware of the ACT Government's policy and we continue to work together to find a solution to the overpopulation of kangaroos on the site," she said.
Greens MLA Deb Foskey said the "whole sorry mess" resulted from a failure of land management by the ACT Government.
"You'd think that the damage from drought and a growing kangaroo population would have been evident long before it reached the crisis stage.
"The only positive outcome now possible is to manage our grasslands with regard to all the species dependent upon them," she said.
The Chief Minister is considering a report by the ACT Commissioner for the Environment, Maxine Cooper, on future management of the ACT's lowland grasslands, including the Belconnen Defence site, and the impact of kangaroo grazing.
As former executive director of the ACT Government's office of environmental management, Environment ACT, Dr Cooper ordered the cull of 900 kangaroos at the Googong Dam foreshores, claiming the animals presented a threat to Canberra's water supply.
Documents obtained by The Canberra Times under Freedom of Information laws showed the cull was opposed by senior government scientists and had been ordered as a result of complaints by neighbouring farmers.
They claimed kangaroos were evading professional shooters on their properties by fleeing into the foreshores reserve.
The Department of Defence has refused to comment on the possibility of a cull or the ACT Government's refusal to grant export permits.
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