I understand why this issue is so emotional, particularly for people who lived through the 2003 Canberra bushfires. Anyone who watched flames approach their home, or came close to losing everything, is entitled to be deeply concerned about fuel loads and bushfire risk. The trauma of that summer remains very real for many Canberrans.
I also share the affection many of us feel for kangaroos. They are an iconic part of the ACT landscape, and nobody takes the prospect of culling them lightly.

However, I don’t think the evidence supports the conclusion that kangaroo culls should cease. The ACT’s conservation program is not primarily about reducing bushfire fuel loads; it is about protecting native grassland ecosystems that have evolved with grazing but can be severely damaged when kangaroo numbers exceed the carrying capacity of the available habitat.

While a single walk may reveal only a few kangaroos in one location, wildlife managers base their decisions on population surveys conducted across entire reserves and landscapes over many years. These assessments consistently indicate that some areas support kangaroo populations at densities that can degrade grassland structure, reduce plant diversity, and threaten the very species mentioned in this post, including grassland earless dragons, golden sun moths, striped legless lizards, and several threatened native plants.

It is true that female kangaroos have reproductive adaptations that help populations respond to changing conditions. However, modern landscapes are not entirely governed by “Mother Nature.” Urban development, fencing, artificial water sources, and the absence of major predators have altered the ecological balance. In such circumstances, natural population regulation may not occur quickly enough to prevent habitat degradation.

The choice is not between loving kangaroos and protecting other native species. It is often a difficult conservation trade-off between the welfare of individual animals and the health of entire ecosystems. Reasonable people can disagree about where that balance should lie, but it is unfair to suggest that the program is simply a disguise for killing kangaroos. The conservation concerns are genuine, even if the management response remains controversial.
We can respect kangaroos as our friends while also acknowledging that active management may sometimes be necessary to protect the broader environment they share with many other vulnerable native species.