Police arrested eight protsters on Wednesday after they tried to stop a cull of hundreds of kangaroos on a military base near the Australian capital as local Aborigines joined the campaign against the slaughter.

Elders from the local indigenous Ngunnawal clan said they were reclaiming the land from the Australian Defence Force, lighting a small ceremonial fire which they attempted to carry onto the defence communications site.

"We are claiming our land and that's what our sacred fire means," elder Isobel Coe shouted at police as protesters forced their way to the site of the cull.

Police arrested four men and four women, who will face trespass charges.

Authorities plan to kill about 400 of the 600 kangaroos on the military communications base. Animal rights activists say the cull is barbaric, but authorities say it is needed if all the kangaroos and other animals are not to starve due to overgrazing.

Animal activists have written to former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and his recently divorced wife Heather Mills asking them to fund a A$750,000 ($714,000) relocation of the animals rejected by the government as too expensive.

Up to four million wild kangaroos are culled each year in Australia, from a total population of 50 million, to control population and prevent overbreeding.