Yahoo News 3 Jun 08;
Australian officials have completed a cull of more than 500 kangaroos which animal activists had protested was an unjustified slaughter, the defence department said Tuesday.
Some 514 eastern grey kangaroos were killed at a former naval communications base in the national capital Canberra by lethal injection, a defence spokeswoman told AFP.
"The cull proceeded according to plan and the process was completed in 10 days," she told AFP.
The Australian Capital Territory government had backed the decision to kill the animals, saying the site was overcrowded with the hopping marsupials, which were threatening the area's flora and fauna.
The RSPCA had also supported the cull, saying it was the only option for the site and was conducted humanely.
But the decision attracted outcry from animal rights activists, who had asked former Beatle Paul McCartney for his help in saving the animals. Protesters wanted the kangaroos relocated to another area rather than killed, a process that the government had ruled out as too expensive.
Despite featuring on the nation's coat of arms, kangaroos are killed by the millions each year by private landowners to control their numbers.
