Police replicate manhunt in ACT bush

You could be forgiven for thinking the massive police operation to capture NSW's most wanted fugitive, Malcolm Naden, had spilled over the border into the ACT yesterday.

But the swarms of camouflaged police that surrounded the picturesque Orroral Valley Homestead yesterday were, in fact, training to handle any bushland fugitives that decide to flaunt the law in the ACT.

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The scenario was simple. A group of bushwalkers in the Orroral Valley had challenged an armed man, who was believed to be hunting pigs illegally in the Namadgi National Park.

The gunman responded by shooting one of the group through the upper arm, leaving him fighting for his life.

For good measure, the gunman then took a woman hostage, and barricaded himself in the Valley's homestead.

The parallels with the huge operation to capture Naden were uncanny, but ACT Policing say they'd been planning the training well before the infamous manhunt captured national attention.

Yet a similar scenario in the ACT may not be as improbable as most Canberrans would think.

Illegal pig hunters are increasingly encroaching on the protected areas of Namadgi National Park, and ACT Policing Superintendent Kylie Flower said they were presenting police with real dangers.

''There are people who carry firearms illegally within the national park, so an incident where a person is actually injured as a result of a shotgun is likely,'' Superintendent Flower said.

''It is rather unusual for a real-life scenario a short distance away to be playing out that has really strong parallels to what we're doing here,'' she said.

''But what it does demonstrate, is that it is a potentially very real situation that we could be faced with here in the ACT.''

The exercise ran for about six hours and was partly designed to test emergency communications systems in remote areas, where phone coverage was non-existent. The Snowy Hydro Southcare Helicopter, the Rural Fire Service, the ACT Ambulance Service, Parks and Conservation and police volunteers were all involved in the training exercise.