There are now two kangaroos for every human in Australia – so ecologists are proposing the country gets a taste for its favourite animal. Is it a leap too far?

Back when I was a kid, I used to race home from my Canberra primary school in time to catch my favourite TV show, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Skippy was an eastern grey roo who lived with the Hammond family in the fictional Waratah national park near Sydney. But Skippy was no ordinary roo. He was smart. Really smart. In short, he was the Australian equivalent of Lassie: an animal hero who helped save visitors to the park from natural hazards, and sometimes even solved crimes. What’s that, Skip? There’s a bushfire? A little boy has fallen down a ravine? Some bank robbers are trying to escape? Lead the way.

Fast forward 30 years and the lovable, cuddly marsupials are massing in plague proportions. New government data shows there are almost 50m of them in Australia; compare this with the human population of 24 million. Driven by overpopulation to starvation, the roos have adapted to survive. They compete with domestic livestock for food and water, damage crops and destroy farm fences. Some roos have even threatened humans and dogs on bushwalks. In 2009, a roo jumped into a family home in suburban Canberra, smashing through a window, landing on a bed, gouging holes in furniture and smearing blood over the walls.

To tackle this growing problem, annual culls take place, a practice that divides Australia. So you can imagine how controversial the idea of eating kangaroo might be. And yet this is what ecologists are now proposing, while nutritionists point out that roo meat is a healthier option than other red meats: organic, full of iron, free of pesticides and antibiotics, and very lean, what with all that hopping. Roos also produce far less methane than the cattle brought over by European settlers.

The idea of eating roo is nothing new. But it has never been completely embraced by Australians, who see it as unpatriotic, and – insult of all insults – un-Australian. The kangaroo is hands-down Australia’s No 1 most recognisable animal symbol. It features on the Australian coat of arms, on the A$1 coin (five roos), on the “Australian-made” logo and on the logo of the national airline, which is nicknamed the Flying Kangaroo. When it comes to sport – and don’t Australians love their sport – the roo is ubiquitous. The national rugby league team is nicknamed the Kangaroos. The national football team is the Socceroos; the under-17 team, the Joeys; the futsal team, the Futsalroos … and so on.

I was torn on the issue. How could I possibly add my beloved Skippy to my dinner plate? It would destroy my memories of childhood, and those are the most precious memories of all.

Perhaps it took moving to the UK to distance myself from my homeland and memories before I could take the plunge. At my nearby gastropub, the roo steak I ordered – medium rare – was delicate and juicy, and not in the slightest bit gamey. Served with a wild-tomato chutney, it tasted a lot like beef and went down perfectly with a glass of robust Australian red. Who knows, perhaps I was feeling homesick.

Returning to Australia for a visit, I went for a walk at my local suburban sports field, about half a kilometre from a mountain in a nature park. The once pristine green grass I remember from my childhood was gone, replaced with a yellowing expanse littered with roo droppings. Desperate for food, the roos wander down from the mountain every night, and often don’t bound back up the hill until late the following morning. It’s a strange feeling to stroll down to your local cafe and have to dodge a mob of eastern greys. Riding up to the mountain on my mountain bike, I saw more roos foraging for food and watching the sun in the sky, waiting until it dropped so they could descend on the field to feast.

Clearly, the roos I grew up with are no longer the roos of today. Times have changed, and so have they. It’s not the roos’ fault there are so many of them. But if we don’t do something about their burgeoning numbers, the nation stands to lose a lot of its biodiversity.

So go on. Try some roo. It’s not un-Australian. In fact, there’s nothing more Australian: it was the original bush tucker, a delicacy of the indigenous communities.

And besides, there’s too many of the glorious bastards anyway.