Wallabia bicolor

Hi @JRCNM yes this is the first record in Nature Mapper of a Black Wallaby there. There are resident populations nearby on Isaacs Ridge and Red Hill with relatively easy access to Callum Brae. Over the decades, Eastern Greys and Wallaroos have slowly occupied more and more areas in Canberra. Likewise, I expect one day there will be a small populatoin of Black (Swamp) Wallabies at Callum Brae. Is this the beginning of that, or just a temporary visit?

Thanks for the info Don, I forgot to ask it if it was staying or not. But yes, it will be interesting to see if they move in. I was very surprised, partly because it's so close to inner urban area, but as you point out and on checking the map, there's quite a few of them to be found to the west, inside Canberra.

I've seen a pair of Wallaroos on the eastern slope of Mugga Mugga.
And I thought I saw one up above Richardson St in Red Hill NR. Its a rocky densely treed area and I've kept a look out there with no success.

Hi @RobParnell, yes Wallaroos have been seen on Mugga for many years but there is only one recorded in Nature Mapper.

The context is that neither Wallaroos nor EGKs were present on the Limestone Plains until well after WW2. The initial spread was by EGKs only, eg the first EGKS were on Mt Taylor in 1975/6. Wallaroos arrived and spread later eg reaching Mt Taylor at least three decades after EGKs. Wallaroos successfully invaded even areas with high densities of EGKS. One of the Red Hill records is from a group of four 1990s roadkills along Hindmarsh Drive, but most others are after 2010. Interestingly, roadkills reveal Wallaroo movements well before sightings of live animals - decades before in the case of Black Mt. They are still spreading I expect. Likewise Black (Swamp) Wallabies but less dramatic story as they had never completely disappeared from the Canberra area, as far as I know. Red-Necked Wallabies are another remarkable story, undergoing a big resurgence at present, and now much more widely distributed than in the 1990s.

That's all a remarkable story! There being no EGKangaroos in the Canberra area until 'recently' is a pretty astonishing fact that I doubt most people know. I assumed they were always present. It's interesting how this should/could play in the arguments for and against culling in the ACT.

@JRCNM, ecology is full of stories like that. People rarely know what the wildlife situation was before they were personally aware of it. But even here in Canberra there have been many astonishing changes.

Regarding the conservation culling, there is no argument among ecologists. Among the minority of members of the public who object to the conservation cull in Canberra, the few who articulate their reason for objecting, do so on philosophical or quasi-religious grounds. In general these arguments place kangaroos and a few other mammal species in a higher category than other species, such that (for those people) it is ethically better to have other species go extinct (some refer to them as 'non-sentient' species, by which they mean all reptiles, birds, fish, mammals with pointy heads, and plants) than to kill an individual kangaroo or other members of the more desirable mammal species. There is no chance of finding common ground between this philosophy and the biodiversity conservation agreements and laws adopted by Australian governments, which seek to conserve the maximum number of species.

These arguments have been set out best in the communications from members of the Compassionate Conservation movement (mostly based in Uni of Technology, Sydney) and from their critics. (I regard CC as just Animal Lib presented more cleverly, although they deny the similarity). By comparison, the local Save Canberra Kangaroos group is less articulate, and much less consistent, so it is more difficult to discern their actual reasoning. In some groups there is also deliberate misrepresentation, which muddies the waters when you are trying to discern motivation and reasoning

The bottom line is that because the culling disagreement is science V a philosophical belief, it is not likely to be much affected by evidence, such as the history of kangaroos on the Limestone Plains. However, in any case the anti-cull people have denied such statements. Also they have repeatedly claimed that kangaroos were far more abundant when Europeans arrived, than they are now. What they claim is dramatically true of the small macropods such as Bettongs, Potoroos, Hare Wallabies, etc, and various other mammals in the 0.5 to 5.0 kg weight range. But cull protestors are relatively unconcerned about those types of species.