Australia shouts wallabies trip home

By ANNE BESTON

Regarded as a pest, threatened with poisoning, shooting and banishment to overseas zoos, some of Kawau Island's wallabies are in for a dramatic change of fortune.

The Australian Government wants the wallabies back. In fact, the Aussies are so keen they're paying the costs of repatriation, including quarantining and airfares.

Once home, the animals are likely to be taken to a special sanctuary where they will be protected from predators.

It's a far cry from their lowly status in New Zealand where they are regarded as bush-destroying pests.

An Auckland Department of Conservation spokesman, Warwick Murray, said he was delighted the Australian Government was helping solve the problem.

"It's a very convenient project from our point of view, they are a pest and we want to get rid of them," he said.

But not all the wallabies are in for the red-carpet treatment. Australia's Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing wants Kawau's tammar wallaby, a genetic sub-species now extinct in its South Australian homeland, and the rare brushtail wallaby.

Two other wallaby species - the swamp and the parma - won't be going home and will remain targets of a campaign to rid the island of the unwanted marsupials by 2005.

Negotiations between DoC and the Australian Department of Agriculture have been going on for months.

The deal means the Australian Government will meet the costs of rounding the animals up, quarantining them for about three months and flying them home.

Two Massey University scientists have been commissioned by state-run Environment Australia to disease-test a sample of the wallabies before they leave.

"They've been bouncing around over here for about 100 years, but no-one knows what diseases they might have picked up because we haven't really cared a hell of a lot," Mr Murray said.

Bernard Robinson, of Australia's Department of Agriculture, said authorities had had to get past some red tape to import the animals but it was hoped to begin flying them home about the middle of this year.

The tammar wallaby on Kawau is a genetically unique species now extinct in their South Australian homeland according to DNA testing carried out last year by Australian scientists.

Kawau Island pohutukawa trust founder Ray Weaver, the man behind the campaign to rid Kawau of wallabies because of damage to native bush, said he supported the repatriation plan.

"It's up to the Aussies to roll up their sleeves and get on with it."

Estimates put Kawau's wallaby population at about 8500 and some of the island's residents argue that the marsupials are a unique feature and should stay. They were brought to Kawau by Governor Sir George Grey in the late 1800s.