Wallaby - Introduced Populations

Introduced Populations

Wallabies of several species have been introduced to other parts of the world, and there are a number of breeding feral populations, including:

• Kawau Island in New Zealand is home to large numbers of tammar, Parma, swamp and brush-tailed rock-wallaby from introductions made around 1870. They are considered a pest on the island, but a programme to re-introduce them to Australia has met with only limited success.
• The Lake Tarawera area of New Zealand has a large tammar population.
• The South Canterbury district of New Zealand has a large population of Bennett's wallaby.
• On the Isle of Man in the Ballaugh Curraghs area, there is a feral population of over 100 bred originally from a pair that escaped from the nearby Curraghs Wildlife Park in 1970.
• Hawaii has small feral population of wallabies in the upper regions of Kalihi Valley of the island of Oahu arising from an escape of zoo specimens of brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) in 1916.
• In the Peak District of England, a population was established in around 1940 by five escapees from a local zoo, and as of late March 2009 sightings were still being made in the area. At its peak in 1975 the population numbered around sixty individuals.
• The island of Inchconnachan in Loch Lomond, Scotland, has a population of around 28 red-necked wallabies introduced by Lady Colquhoun in the 1920s. Eradication to protect the native capercaillie has been proposed.
• There is also a small population on Lambay Island off the east coast of Ireland. This group was introduced by Dublin Zoo after a sudden population explosion in the mid 1980s.
• Other populations in the United Kingdom that for some periods bred successfully included one near Teignmouth, Devon, another in the Ashdown Forest, East Sussex and one on the island of Bute and Lundy. It has recently been reported by walkers in the Lickey Hills Country Park area of Birmingham that a pair of wallabies have been released or are loose there (East Tunnock Rambling Club Meeting, December 2010).
• In France, in the southern part of the Forest of Rambouillet, 50 kilometres west of Paris, there is a wild group of around 30 Bennett's wallabies. This population has been present since the seventies, when some individuals escaped from the zoological park of Émancé after a storm.