The annual cull is aiming for almost 2000 kangaroos, bringing the total of eastern greys to be shot in the past two years to almost 6000.

Wildlife volunteer Waltraud Pix was left in tears over destruction of native re-growth caused by kangaroos which she says were fenced in by a new high-wire barrier alongside the Majura Parkway.

She says this created an island, where the kangaroos are “breeding, breeding, breeding”.

“The erosion is enormous, once the topsoil is gone, nothing will grow there any more.”

Ms Pix, a biologist from Germany, who has been fighting kangaroos’ over-grazing for more than a decade, hopes the government’s first-time cull on Mount Majura is successful.

“We are working our guts out planting and not getting anywhere,” the Friends of Mount Majura co-ordinator said.

“If there is no control in these confined areas, we will have to give up. 

I was crying over an area I have been working on for 10 years, since 2004. 

It was becoming really good. 

They built up fence for car driving security, suddenly, there was an onslaught of grazing.”

Ms Pix says in Germany lynx are being reintroduced to control deer, and believes natural predators are needed in Australia to balance the numbers of herbivores.

ACT Parks and Conservation Service director Daniel Iglesias says he cannot divulge numbers of kangaroos being targeted on Mount Majura until the annual cull is completed on July 31.

“We have thousands of kangaroos in the Ainslie and Majura region and they are having a clear and measurable impact on the natural environment, and we are culling a large number out of Ainslie [as well] as part of these activities,” Mr Iglesias said.

He said the lower slopes of Mount Majura had always been a productive grassy area where kangaroos had thrived, although they needed more grass in winter.

The Commonwealth Government had culled on the eastern side of Majura Road, and rural lessees had also culled kangaroos, Mr Iglesias said.

Ms Pix said lessees were fed up with the over-grazing, and had erected fences too, which had helped confine the kangaroos.

Mr Iglesias said Mount Majura was a difficult site, because the mountain harboured large numbers of kangaroos, making it harder to find the animals and cull them safely.

“We have been looking at Mount Majura for a number of years and this year we thought we had a strategy we could apply, hence us going in.

It has required us to gain operational experience that we have gained, by culling in some of the easier sites before we went to Mount Majura which was more technically challenging,” Mr Iglesias said.

He could not say whether the parkway fencing had trapped them in a confined area.

“I would be surprised, but I can’t be definitive about that,” Mr Iglesias said.

“There is still a large area for the kangaroos to move around in. 

With this new road being constructed they have become quite visible, people are actually seeing them more.”

At this time of the year the young and very old kangaroos die in large numbers because they can’t get enough nutrition because of poor quality feed, Mr Iglesias said.

“My suspicions are they being seen because of the new road, and inevitably, with not much feed they have to move around more. 

At other times they’re under trees. 

They need to spend as much time now as possible to get nutrition,” he said.