{"id":1248,"date":"2022-09-01T01:06:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T01:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/?p=1248"},"modified":"2022-09-01T02:30:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T02:30:31","slug":"kangaroo-valleys-best-kept-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/2022\/09\/01\/kangaroo-valleys-best-kept-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Kangaroo Valley\u2019s best kept secret?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Have you ever seen a brush-tailed rock-wallaby?<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Probably not, and here&#8217;s why&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>They only live on the steepest cliff faces<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>There are just 30 rock-wallabies left in Kangaroo Valley<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>They are active at dusk and overnight.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kangaroo Valley may be named after its kangaroos. But what about its brush-tailed rock-wallabies?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whilst kangaroos are abundant across Australia, rock-wallabies are rare. Kangaroo Valley is lucky to host one of the last remnant populations ofthem\u2026 in fact these are the southern-most rock-wallabies in NSW.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are special animals. They are excellent rock climbers, with \u2018suction feet\u2019 that help them grip and long bushy tails that aid their balance. Female rock-wallabies protect their joeys in their pouches. But when pouch joeys get too big, they may cause their mothers to lose their balance and fall off the cliffs. The rock-wallabies then have no choice but to stash their joeys in rock crevices whilst they forage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These joey rock-wallabies are vulnerable to predators \u2013 foxes, dogs and cats all present major threats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, how are the Kangaroo Valley rock-wallabies faring? The good news is that their numbers have steadily grown over the last two decades, from eight in 2009 to 34 in 2021. They narrowly escaped the 2020 bushfires, but this is still a small and vulnerable population. Right now, there are not enough breeding females\u2026 and 10 of the 11 joeys born in the last three years have been males.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Will Kangaroo Valley watch on as there is a possible extinction on its doorstep?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Friends of the Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby were founded by Valley locals who were determined to fight to conserve these \u2018little fellas\u2019. 25 years on, this Kangaroo Valley based conservation organisation remains committed to building up a thriving population of rock-wallabies for future generations in the Valley to enjoy. The Friends work closely with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to actively protect rock-wallabies \u2013 controlling foxes, monitoring rock-wallaby colonies and tracking individuals using radio collars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every KV rock-wallaby has a name and can be identified through its ear notches and chest patterns. KV public schoolchildren suggested names last year and this year the Friends ran a naming competition. Frolic, Banjo, Rocky and Tenzin have been duly named!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what next?\u00a0 Our community have made fantastic progress and we need to keep up the good work to continue to sustain the numbers. And it is time to look beyond this. Eventually the goal is to be able to create a larger more sustainable population. But to do this requires an understanding of how they disperse, detailed research into past and future suitable habitat for the future, and to search the broader Illawarra area for relic populations. The next few years bring exciting and rewarding work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Friends\u2019 new president, Jerry Connor, is keen to bring in more volunteers and fresh ideas. \u201cI believe the rock-wallabies are one of those things that are special to Kangaroo Valley. They deserve our support and protection. We would love to hear from others in the Valley who are passionate about conservation and would like to get involved in the Friends. We need all the support we can get!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To find out more about the Friends of the Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby, follow us on Facebook or visit rockwallaby.org.au. To get involved, please contact <\/span><a href=\"mailto:friends@rockwallaby.org.au\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">friends@rockwallaby.org.au<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rosie Connor<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>image: Joeys are at risk from foxes, dogs and cats<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever seen a brush-tailed rock-wallaby? Probably not, and here&#8217;s why&#8230; They only live on the steepest cliff faces There are just 30 rock-wallabies left in Kangaroo Valley They are active at dusk and overnight. Kangaroo Valley may be named after its kangaroos. But what about its brush-tailed rock-wallabies? Whilst kangaroos are abundant across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Kangaroo Valley Voice","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice","push-errors":false,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1275,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/1275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kangaroovalley.nsw.au\/valleyvoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}