Brush-tailed rock-wallaby

The brush-tailed rock-wallaby or small-eared rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) is a kind of wallaby. It is one of several rock-wallabies in the genus Petrogale.  It lives in the rocks and cliffs of the Australia's Great Dividing Range from about  north-west of Brisbane to the Grampians in south west Victoria. Its habitats include rainforest and dry sclerophyl forests. Numbers of brush-tailed rock-wallabies have gone down in the south and west of its range. It remains locally common in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. In Victoria the species is nearly extinct with only four in the Grampians National Park, and 20 in East Gippsland. In 1988 at Jenolan caves in New South Wales, about 80 wallabies were released into the forest, but by 1992 there were only seven left.

Introductions
In the late 1800s, Governor Grey introduced this and four other species of wallabies (including the rare parma wallaby) to islands in Hauraki Gulf, near Auckland, New Zealand, where they became well-established.  In modern times, the wallabies have come to be viewed as exotic pests. They have caused problems for the native plants and animals and are being removed from the islands.   Between 1967 and 1975, 210 rock-wallabies were captured on Kawau Island and returned to Australia, along with thousands of other wallabies.Shaw, W.B.; Pierce, R.J. 2002: Management of North Island weka and wallabies on Kawau Island. Department of Conservation Science Internal Series 54. Department of Conservation, Wellington. . Rock-wallabies were removed from Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands during the 1990s. Another 33 rock-wallabies were captured on Kawau during the 2000s, and returned to Australia.

In 2003 some Kawau brush-tails were relocated to the Waterfall Springs Conservation Park north of Sydney, New South Wales, for captive breeding purposes.

Two wallabies escaped in 1916 on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. There is now a small breeding population.


References

Other websites

Brush-tailed rock-wallaby recovery in NSW (Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife) 
Brush-tailed rock-wallaby population in Green Gully - a conservation case study 
Brush-tailed rock-wallaby habitat modelling 
BBC video of brush-tailed rock-wallabies in action 
The Aussie Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby Ark Conservation Project 

Category:Macropods
Category:Marsupials of Australia