Date Time
Help or hindrance: Protection efforts changing marsupial mannerisms
Like all animals in the wild, yellow-footed rock-wallabies have an innate fight or flight reflex – learned behaviours to keep them safe from predators.
What are the long-term impacts on the fluffy marsupials when a threat is reduced or removed?
Wildlife researcher Dr Deane Smith has delved into the impacts of exclusion fencing on non-target species as part of his University of Southern Queensland PhD project, which included travel to Quilpie in south-west Queensland to explore the positive and negative effects of the man-made structures on colonies of yellow-footed rock-wallabies.
Dr Smith said the fences had been established to remove pest species from the area, many of which were the wallabies’ natural predators and competitors.