"The kangaroo export market experienced a significant downturn when exports to Russia, which traditionally took up to 70 per cent of supply. 

Three kangaroo abattoirs, including Charleville and Longreach, along with a plant processing beef are off the supply list, putting 500 full-time and 2000 part-time jobs at risk.

The impact will be greater in Charleville where millions of dollars were spent gearing up for kangaroo exports. Then there are the harvesters, the full-time and part-time shooters that supply the abattoirs.

Charleville-based shooter Peter Melano said the Russian ban had pushed his returns down to 65¢ a kilogram.

"A couple of years ago we were getting $1.30 and then the price began creeping back to 90 cents," he said. "Now Russia's action has cut our return back to 65 and I hope it does not go any lower."

Mr Melano, whose record kill was more than 200 in a night, said the average professional took 40 to 50 head.

"The collapse of the price means we have to work a lot harder – get more roos – to maintain the income stream," he said.

Charleville is in the Murweh Shire where Mayor Mark O'Brien believes the Russians are concerned about meat contamination.

"When you kill animals in an abattoir that can be controlled," he said. "But when you paddock kill, a roo carcass can be kept in a chiller box for up to 14 days before it comes to the abattoir. So the potential is much greater for it to become contaminated and this apparently is what the Russians have based their decision on."

The industry's predicament hasn't escaped the notice of Canberra. The federal minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, is off to the World Expo in Shanghai in May 2010 to promote kangaroo meat, and set about winning the hearts and minds of Chinese consumers.

China has given broad-based approval to accepting imports of kangaroo meat, and as early as this week, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) may issue an invitation for Chinese officials to visit kangaroo processing facilities in Australia and discuss trade details.

It's a mere fraction of Australia's meat sector, but as Ross Garnaut flagged last year in his climate change review, this native emblem could be headed for big things. Garnaut proposed the improbable step of farming kangaroos and boosting their numbers from 34 million currently, to 240 million by 2020.

The farming of kangaroos, which emit negligible amounts of methane (unlike cattle), would allow a reduction in beef cattle numbers by 7 million, and sheep by 34 million; reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of a huge 16 megatonnes of CO2 over the next ten years (methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2).

"Kangaroo harvest quotas for each year are set by DERM and endorsed by the Commonwealth Government.

"Quotas for culling kangaroos are based on population estimates stemming from aerial surveys undertaken each year. Quotas are set at between 10 and 20 per cent of the estimated population.

"The department's commercial macropod management program manages the harvest of kangaroos in an ecologically sustainable way using best available scientific knowledge and best practice management and monitoring to ensure kangaroo populations are maintained."

Total quotas per kangaroo species for 2010 are: red kangaroo 887,127 (2009: 803,854); eastern grey kangaroo 1,068,847 (2009: 1,014,379); and wallaroo 335,849 (2009: 385,515). Queensland has had a kangaroo harvest program in place since the 1970's and, with export growth in kangaroo products in recent years, the program's focus has changed from pest management to sustainable harvesting while meeting guidelines for animal treatment and food safety.