Almost 40 agile wallabies have been found dead, feared poisoned, during the past week in north Queensland, at a site where their habitat has been destroyed and isolated by housing development.
On Monday morning wildlife rescue volunteers found another four wallabies dead near sporting fields at Trinity Beach, north of Cairns.
The Agile Project, a group that cares for the wallabies and has been fighting a legal case seeking to relocate them, says 37 agile wallabies had died in similar circumstances in the past week.
“I woke up this morning and I had no doubt in my mind there would be more dead,” said Shai Ager, an ecologist who started the conservation group two years ago.
“Our rescuers are nearly broken. It’s been 37 deaths now in the past few days. They’re dying a horrible death too, I’ve sat with three of them while they’ve been foaming at the mouth.”
Autopsy results are not expected for a few days and Ager said local rescuers did not want to rush to conclusions, but that “strange” symptoms tended to indicate poisoning rather than disease or environmental factors.
At the weekend, seven live joeys were found in the pouch of their dead mother. Five have survived and are being cared for by rescuers.
For the past two years, wildlife rescuers have been lobbying to have the wallabies relocated from an increasingly isolated environment at Trinity Beach. The animals have effectively been hemmed into a shrinking habitat between the Captain Cook Highway, the Bluewater housing estate and the coastal mangroves, with diminishing food and water supplies.
Ager said the large housing development had left only a small amount of bushland for the population of coastal wallabies, pushing many into spaces like backyards, sporting fields and public parks. Some locals consider them pests.
“The development has disregarded the wallabies,” Ager said. “Now there’s just too many in such a small space. They haven’t put practical management plans in place, and they’ve been pushed out of their land and they’re now living in people’s backyards.”
During the past two years, local media in Cairns has reported on conflict between humans and wallabies at Trinity Beach. In 2017 a child was reportedly injured by a wallaby. Rescuers are increasingly concerned by the numbers of wallabies in the area being hit by cars or attacked by dogs.
Last year, the Agile Project began a court case against the Queensland government seeking permission to relocate the entire local wallaby population. They have identified two suitable properties in the Cairns region and the case is set to return to court in October.
“The government has been ignoring this population of wallabies hoping the situation goes away,” Ager said. “It’s no surprise that people would be doing outrageous things like this. The public wants a relocation. The other option is a cull, but the majority of the community won’t support that.”
