In Australia, cats kill more than half of the young wallaby and were on the verge of causing their extinction.
The wallaby is one of Australia’s most iconic animals. Commonly mistaken for kangaroos – their cousins older -, the about 30 species of this marsupial move nimbly through jumps that balance with their tail and spread in different ecosystems in Australia and New Guinea.
In the 19th century, the flanged wallaby (identified by the black and white stripes running down its back) was the most common species of wallaby in mainland Australia; yet the hunt for take advantage of their fur and the predation of feral cats and foxes were about to extinguish them.
For most of the 20th century, the species was believed to have disappeared. It was not until 1973 that the sighting of a small population in Queensland the interest of conservationists and the government rekindled to recover the flanged wallaby and nature reserves were established to protect the species, then estimated at just a few hundred individuals.
The favorite prey of cats
At the beginning of 2010, the outlook was not very flattering for the species: wallabies are one of the favorite prey of the gatos funeral, the main enemy of hundreds of native Australian species, introduced to the continent in 1788 together with the arrival of the first English ships.
The data reveal that the situation is especially critical when it comes to juvenile specimens: the smallest wallabies (less than 3 kilograms) have no chance when a cat is on the prowl and it is estimated that more than half are hunted by this invasive species before reaching adulthood.
The situation changes dramatically with adult wallabies, where the survival rate skyrockets by above 80% thanks to his developed skills and agility to avoid fatal encounters with cats.
The problem led to University of New South Wales to come up with new strategies to stop predation caused by cats, a major environmental problem in which the Australian government has invested millions of dollars without finding a fundamental solution so far.
However, in the case of the flanged wallaby, a method known as headstarting is working: it’s about remove the youngest specimens from their natural environment and take them to a protected area free of feral cats, until they reach sufficient maturity to return to the wild with less risk.
Between 2015 and 2018, 89% of the wallabies who participated in the pioneering program of headstarting were successfully developed and they were reintroduced to their natural environment.
At first glance, the implementation of the strategy yields successful results; However, the following studies in this regard will attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the possible behavioral disadvantages of wallabies that grew up in nature reserves, far from their main predator. This protection could interfere with the feral of each specimen, especially when it comes to recognizing other predators, such as eagles or snakes.
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