Protest group Save Canberra's Kangaroos claims the ACT government should halt the current cull of kangaroos because its counting methods are faulty and leading to "a massacre" of the native animal.
They claim numbers of kangaroos are being overestimated, leading to excessive culling and joeys being bludgeoned to death.
The government maintains its counting methods are scientific and robust and the means by which joeys are killed - with a blow to the head or by shooting - follows a national code of practice.
Save Canberra's Kangaroos has also raised concerns about the shooting of kangaroos now under way in the reserves and its proximity to houses.
Inner South resident Brian Tunks said some householders near the reserves had not received any information the cull was happening.
"Seriously, I've got people behind the fence line in Red Hill who say they are quite traumatised by the guns going off at night," he said.
"There's no notification in the mail to anyone that this is happening. I mean, Evoenergy will tell you if they're turning your power off."
The government says it has letterboxed nearby houses but one Red Hill resident who lived one house down from the reserve and could hear the shooting said they had received nothing.
"We definitely heard shooting and I said to my wife, 'What's that'?" the resident, who did not want to be named, said.
"There was no official letter or anything like that, as far as I know."
The 2023 cull is currently under way across six areas of the Canberra Nature Park, with plans to shoot 1042 eastern grey kangaroos.
The cull is taking place in the Mount Ainslie, Red Hill, Mount Majura and Pinnacle nature reserves, the Mulanggari Grasslands and Kama section of the Molonglo River Reserve.
These areas are closed to the public from 6pm to 6am daily, except Friday and Saturday until July 31, to allow the shooting to take place.
ACT conservator of flora and fauna Bren Burkevics maintained householders had been informed of the cull.
"The ACT is one of few jurisdictions to announce required culls each year on public land; this is to ensure public awareness and public safety," he said.
"Residents are kept informed each year through a letterbox drop to houses closest to the reserves where culling will occur. Social media, website updates and a media release are also used and are followed by extensive local media coverage to support the community messaging."
The management plan for the eastern grey kangaroo has been in place since 2017, designed to manage kangaroo numbers so the animals don't overgraze grasslands and woodlands, potentially affecting other species, or so kangaroo populations don't starve "in times of drought". The management plan says the ACT government "does not cull to address vehicle-kangaroo collisions".
The Save Canberra's Kangaroo group believes now is a time for a rethink of the management plan, questioning the counting methods used by the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development directorate to justify its cull targets.
They claim local residents and regular walkers sometimes struggle to find a kangaroo in the reserves but the government is saying they contain hundreds of the animal.
Save Canberra's Kangaroo spokesperson Jane Robinson said the official line was there were 1748 kangaroos in the Red Hill nature reserve and 2770 kangaroos in the Mount Ainslie and Mount Majura reserves.
But she said sweep counts by the group had sighted only 378 kangaroos in the Red Hill reserve and 393 in the Mount Ainslie-Mount Majura reserves.
The group also did a sweep count at the Farrer Ridge nature reserve last weekend, to try to see if the population had bounced back after a shooting cull in 2021 and how the numbers compared with the official tally.
The directorate said there were 195 kangaroos on Farrer Ridge while its members sighted 134 on Saturday.
"Members of Save Canberra's Kangaroos are deeply concerned that flawed methodology has resulted in grossly inflated population counts on many other reserves, including reserves which are targeted for shooting this year," Ms Robinson said.
However, Mr Burkevics said the government did "not base the kangaroo management program on a single direct count or sweep count".
Rather than one count in one day, it used methods such as walked line transects, with observers walking many kilometres over a number of days.
"Kangaroo population estimates are calculated through robust, scientifically recognised methods, suited to the size, vegetation and terrain of each reserve," Mr Burkevics said.
"However, any learnings or observations made by citizen science counts will be considered as part of developing future year kangaroo management programs."
Ms Robinson, from Save Canberra's Kangaroos, said in response: "the directorate has used sweep counts for many years, including four times at Farrer Ridge. They never said there was a problem with sweep counts when they were conducting them".
Jenny MacDougall, who led the Farrer count, said the cull targets were always exceeded because they did not take into account joeys killed.
"They set the cull number but they do not tell the public that will be exceeded every year because of the joeys who are pulled out of the pouches and hit on the head," she said.
The directorate said the ACT was the only Australian jurisdiction that restricted culling of female kangaroos to a defined season, March 1 to July 31, to "avoid the time of year when most females have large pouch young or small young at foot aged eight to 12 months old".
It said if a female kangaroo was culled "any young are humanely euthanised in accordance with the methods described in the National Code of Practice for the Human Shooting of Kangaroo and Wallabies for Non-Commercial Purposes".
The code says small, furless pouch young can be killed either by a blow to the head or by being stunned and decapitated. All furred pouch young can be killed by a single forceful blow to the head. Young at foot should be killed by a single shot to the heart or brain.
While all MLAs were invited to the Farrer Ridge count last weekend, including Environment Minister and Greens MLA Rebecca Vassarotti, the only MLA to attend was Liberals Member for Brindabella Nicole Lawder.
"As the shadow minister for the environment, it's important that I hear the wide range of views community members hold regarding the ACT government's kangaroo cull program," Ms Lawder said.
"The clubbing of orphaned joeys to death is something I find personally abhorrent, not to mention hypocritical considering it's a Greens minister responsible for this program."
One of the people who attended the Farrer Ridge count, Canberra doctor Dr Gwenda Griffiths, said the official kangaroo numbers were being estimated by "ridiculous extrapolative mathematics" in which a sighting of one mob was being multiplied out across the reserve.
Dr Griffiths said she spoke beforehand to Mr Burkevics, who gave her some assurances last weekend's count by Save Canberra's Kangaroos would be taken into consideration.
"He said if the count comes back significantly lower than the official number, then they would consider reviewing the quotas they have set from this year's cull on some of the sites," Dr Griffiths said
The counters on Farrer Ridge on Saturday said while the didn't find nearly 200 kangaroos, they did find infestations of weeds such as as St John's Wort and blackberry.
"I don't see how killing kangaroos is going to maintain the reserves to any great standard. They're covered in weeds," Dr Griffiths said.
Among the volunteers to help in the count at Farrer Ridge was Canberra resident Whitney Richardson.
"We love our kangaroos in Canberra and it's a shame to see them being blasted into non-existence," she said.
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