KANGAROO exclusion fences are almost finished at two Canberra Defence sites in a bid to stop further damage to grasslands through overpopulation and overgrazing.
High fences are taking shape at the Belconnen Naval Transmission Station and the Majura Training Area to keep kangaroos out of certain areas, with Defence saying both sites continued to be adversely affected by overgrazing.
Defence initially applied for and was granted a licence by the ACT Government earlier this year to cull about 3000 kangaroos at the two sites, prompting an outcry from some animal welfare and activist groups. Defence had said the animals risked starvation and were damaging the environment.
Government ecologists and consultants also claimed unsustainable kangaroo populations had degraded the grassland habitat of the endangered grassland earless dragon, striped legless lizard, hooded robin, brown treecreeper and a number of rare plant species.
Defence has issued a tender for the cull of kangaroos at Belconnen, but has decided not to undertake culling at Majura for this season and will monitor the situation instead.
Estimates have put more than 500 kangaroos at Belconnen and about 6000 at Majura.
A Defence spokesman said the tender was now closed and they were evaluating the proposals.
The method for the reduction is expected to be darting and lethal injection after the Australian Federal Police raised concerns about the safety of shooting the animals with protesters threatening to disrupt the culls.
The AFP was also worried Kaleen residents could be at risk if bullets went astray at Belconnen.
Concern over darting has been raised in the Legislative Assembly, with the possibility of stray poisonous darts getting into the hands of the community.
While there had been talk of relocating kangaroos at the Belconnen site, Defence confirmed there had been no movement to date.
They said the exclusion fences would be supported by a monitoring program to analyse the usefulness of this approach in protecting threatened species.
The Defence spokesman said recent rainfall had had little effect on allowing the vegetation to recover, with high numbers of kangaroos still at both sites, but once the Majura fence was complete they expected to see some positive results.
"Once the Majura Natural Temperate Grasslands exclusion fence is completed and kangaroos walked out of the grasslands, the vegetation is anticipated to be able to recover," he said.
The Belconnen site continued to be under pressure.