Wallabies bouncing about outside their natural habitat have Department of Conservation staff in a flap.
The department was concerned about sightings of the Australian marsupials around Dunedin city and in North Otago, said Otago conservancy spokeswoman Nicola Vallance.
In Dunedin, two wallabies had been found dead and one spied disappearing into bush,
while there had been three live sightings in the Herbert Forest, south of Oamaru, Ms Vallance said.
The animals, which grow to 30kg, devastate vegetation. A single wallaby consumes the equivalent of one-third the food eaten by a grazing sheep.
"If a wallaby population got established they would have to be eradicated with very expensive large-scale pest control. Nobody wants that."
It was doubtful wallabies had naturally arrived in Dunedin, Ms Vallance said, and people releasing them risked a $50,000 fine.
- NZPA
Herald Feature: Conservation and Environment
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