Ananova:

Kangaroos will be sent to live a life of luxury in air-conditioned accommodation after public outrage at plans to kill them backfired.

Australia's military were caught on the hop after angry reaction at plans to shoot thousands of the Australian icons at military bases.

Instead 3,200 eastern grey kangaroos will be trucked to a village more than an hour away from Canberra at the cost of £1,500 each, reports Metro.

The Defence Department said in May the kangaroos were causing serious erosion due to over-grazing on two drought-ravaged military bases.

A secret plan prepared for the defence department and obtained by the Canberra Times newspaper, said thousands of kangaroos would be sterilised on the Belconnen Naval Transmission Station and Majura military training area to control numbers.

Hundreds of others would be sedated with valium and trucked in special air-conditioned vans to the rural village of Braidwood, east of Canberra.

The kangaroos would be herded into a padded pen and sedated, then shot with a paintball gun to mark them as ready for transport.

They would be released in a fenced area covered with shadecloth, the report by the Wildcare protection group for the Defence Department said.

Local wildlife groups were at odds over whether it was more humane to cull the kangaroos or move them.

Police in May ordered a halt to the planned cull, saying bullets could ricochet and hit protesters who planned to trespass on defence land to save the animals.