Up to 300 Western Australian kangaroo shooters are facing a bleak future following a decision by one of Australia's largest pet food to no longer use locally sourced meat.

Local shooters and producers say they were selling up to 100,000 kangaroo carcasses per year to the Perth processing plant of VIP Pet Foods but were told all future supplies would be shipped in from the eastern states.

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VIP Pet Foods CEO David Grant said declining numbers of kangaroos in WA coupled with an underutilisation of the company's processing plant in Perth were the driving factors in the decision.

"It's simply a financial decision, we have plenty of capacity in our Queensland facility and better access to kangaroos so it makes sense to process it all in the one location.

"It's about 10 times the size of what we have in WA."

Mr Grant described the overall value of the WA kangaroo meat market to the company as "small" but said the Perth plant would continue to produce dog food from locally sourced chickens.

He said the company would now source mainly eastern grey kangaroos from NSW, South Australia, Victoria and far north Queensland.

Impact to be widely felt

Margaret River pet food producer Troy Childs said he was told through a third party that his long standing arrangement with VIP Pet Foods had been terminated.

"I've been supplying them up to 150 tonnes of meat and carcass a year for seven years which all comes out of the Augusta-Margaret River shire.

"It was worth close to $180,000 and that was at the small end of the scale, they (VIP Pet Foods) were doing close to 100,000 carcases a year in the Perth factory."

Mr Childs said it was left to him to deliver the news to the eight shooters who had previously supplied him meat. He said the decision would have far reaching impacts on local industry and agriculture.

"Over 300 kangaroo shooters will now be out of work.

"And it's not just in Margaret River either, you're talking about guys in Manjimup, Albany, Perth and all over the Nullarbor, it's a sad day for our industry."

Loss of income immediate

Margaret River based kangaroo shooter Peter Stonehouse said the decision meant an immediate loss of what he described as a "pretty good income" and valuable service to the community.

Forced to make other plans, kangaroo shooter, Peter Stonehouse. ( ABC Rural: Anthony Pancia )

"You work for yourself and essentially you could go out and work every night of the week.

"But it's not just that, I'm always getting calls in the middle of the night to humanely put down a 'roo that's been hit by a car."

With few employment prospects in the bustling tourist town, Mr Stonehouse said he was more than likely "going to hit the road and see what happens."

"The kangaroo population is going to get out of control and landholders will just get recreational shooters to go out and shoot them and leave them where they drop.

"We take pride in doing it humanely and responsibly, but that's all over now."