Aussies OK Another Kangaroo Hunt

Hired shooters are killing thousands of fast-breeding kangaroos that officials fear would otherwise starve within a fenced-off grassy army training base.

Officials said Monday that professional hunters, contracted by the Defense Department, will kill 6,500 eastern gray kangaroos by the end of next month at the Puckapunyal military base, 62 miles north of Melbourne.

The slaughter was ordered after it was decided that a rapidly growing kangaroo population would overgraze the 104,000-acre area that is bounded by a 6-foot electric fence.

Last year, a similar shooting operation killed more than 20,000 kangaroos on the base. Even so, a census in April this year found the area still had an unsustainable population of 36,000.

Defense Department spokeswoman Claire Bannon said another count would be conducted at the end of the current shootings to determine whether even more should be culled.

The army has permission from Victorian state authorities to cull as many as 15,000 animals.

Animal rights activists say overpopulation is caused by poor management practices and the fence prevents the animals from moving on when food gets scarce.