Black-footed Rock Wallaby Workshop - 25/6/2011, all welcome!

Environmental scientists and volunteers in the forests of Gippsland in eastern Victoria are currently experiencing the first glimmers of success in their battle to bring the Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby back from the brink of extinction. You can read about this by clicking this link. Here in Alice we have our own rock wallabies, not quite as scarce as their southern cousins, but threatened nonetheless by habitat fragmentation, changes in vegetation communities, and introduced predators.

Black-footed Rock Wallaby, Petrogale lateralis.

The Land for Wildlife coordinators are busily setting and checking dog traps at the moment. We're monitoring four LfW properties which have BFRW populations in the hope of removing some introduced predators and giving the wallabies a chance to spread out and breed up.

The culmination of our trapping program, will be a workshop at the end of June. This is a chance for you to come along and learn more about this fascinating species and how we can look after and rehabilitate their habitat around town.

Expert mammalogist Clare Ciechanowicz from the Alice Springs Desert Park will be on hand to discuss the biology of the little wallabies and the LfW coordinators will have information about the successes of the dog trapping program. We'll be discussing habitat regeneration for all Central Australian gardens, so even if you don't have wallabies on your property there'll be plenty to learn about and take home to your garden.

Stay tuned for venue details, but the workshop will be on Saturday the 25th of June at 10am.