Although she has not been as strident or vehement as Lachlan Sullivan, I feel some of her assertions must be answered.

Ms Woodhart is claiming the project is very secretive. I do know the volunteers have not sought media exposure during the relocation as they felt if large crowds were attracted to the old orchard, humans could be endangered as well as the animals involved.

I am sure, however, that if Ms Woodhart had asked some of the relevant people or, better still, volunteered to help for a night or two, she could have found out whatever she wanted to know.

She asserted that as the council was spending $9000 per month, which I think she means to hire the fencing, that ratepayers would have spent $150,000.

As to the best of my knowledge, the fence was only installed last September. This would mean that she is insinuating that after 10 months an extra $60,000 has been spent somewhere. (Although Ms Woodhart would undoubtedly be better at maths than I.)

I would suggest that when the project is completed, Ms Woodhart should seek the correct figures.

Ms Woodhart claims the project is beyond belief, but does not suggest an alternative. 

There was a large population of kangaroos in the area causing dangers to ordinary motorists, competitors in the car races, walkers and to the harness racing track, so their numbers had to be reduced.

In my experience I can think of no other alternatives to reduce the population quickly than mass poisoning or shooting.

Fertilty control methods have not been perfected and would only limit the increase in population.

Poisoning such numbers sounds totally abhorrent and would certainly result in serious environmental contamination.

Shooting, as strongly advocated by Mr Sullivan, had already been tried and caused massive negative publicity and also large numbers of frightened kangaroos coming onto the roads and streets, so there were actually more car accidents at the time.

So it became obvious for any control system to work that the animals had to be steadily tempted into an enclosure both for their own safety and that of motorists and the public.

In that enclosure at night, the whole area is ringed by lights from single houses, the end of College Road, Rydges, etc. The only clear space is down towards the trotting track, but that is a low horizon with some houses and stables behind it.

Mr Sullivan has said this area is not zoned urban, but as a 10-year-old child on my first trips out spotlighting I was taught most definitely that you never shoot towards lights.

Even if professional shooters were employed to only shoot animals through the head, it would only take one stray shot which could travel several kilometres from a high powered rifle. 

If this happened the council could be liable for incalculable damages.

Therefore it was agreed that relocating these animals would be better, as the use of a dart gun with a maximum range of about 100 metres aiming at the animal’s thigh, i.e. below the horizon, was much safer.

I believe this project is nearly finished and once the final results are published they will reveal that the volunteers have worked incredible hours to relocate a massive number of animals safely.

There have been hold-ups and delays in the project, but I would like to point out that these have been almost entirely due to long delays in granting licences, then constant directions, restrictions, etc imposed by bureaucrats in the Sydney Office of National Parks. Some of the experiments they directed the volunteers to perform would have severely compromised animal welfare.