Six dead Tammar Wallabies hanging upside down by a fallen tree.

Tammar Wallabies (Macropus eugenii) are still very common all over Kangaroo Island. So much so, that in some areas the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (SANPWS) still issues destruction permits for them as agricultural pests. At the time of European settlement they were also common throughout the Adelaide Plains, Mt Lofty Ranges and on parts of Eyre and Yorke Peninsula but these mainland Tammar Wallabies became extinct with the last populations on southern Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas finally dying out in the 1950s.

When Governor George Grey left South Australia to become Governor of New Zealand in 1845 he took with him some Australian mammals, including mainland Tammar Wallabies and established a menagerie on Kawau Island. These subsequently went feral and in recent years the New Zealand Department of Conservation has began an eradication program in an attempt to return the island to a more natural state. The South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage organised to catch a group before the eradication program started and they are now established at Monarto Zoo. In a cooperative program between SANPWS and the Zoo releases back to the wild were made at Innes National Park on southern Yorke Peninsula after serious fox control programs in the park.

Information provided by Anthony Robinson, South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage

Strahan, Ronald, ed. The mammals of Australia : the national photographic index of Australian wildlife, Chatswood, N.S.W. : Reed Books : The Australian Museum, 1995

Dickman, C. R. A fragile balance : the extraordinary story of Australian marsupials, Chicago, Illinois. : University of Chicago Press, 2007