Wallaby research and technical reports

An effective lure can increase wallaby numbers around bait stations and hence increase numbers consuming toxic bait. This research evaluates non-semiochemical olfactory (smell) lures and their attractiveness to Bennett’s wallabies.

Building our capability to undergo strontium testing on wallaby samples to provide insights around movement patterns of individual wallabies across their lifespan and whether they are of local origin to the area where they were discovered. Of particular importance in assessing whether a wallaby was illegally translocated to an area.

This research aims to build our capability to undergo strontium testing on wallaby samples to provide insights around movement patterns of the sampled wallaby across their lifespan and whether the wallaby is of local origin to the area where they were discovered. This is of particular importance in determining the likelihgood the wallaby was illegally moved to the area.

Finding wallabies in areas outside containment is extremely challenging and resource intensive. Knowing where to look is a key component when planning surveillance. A cost effective way to measure the likelihood of wallaby presence is needed. The creation of grid-based risk maps for both dama and Bennett’s wallabies in mainland New Zealand is one such solution where the maps can be used to assist in the prioritisation of search effort to areas most likely to be inhabited by invading wallabies.

Knowing detection probabilities of detector dogs searching for dama wallaby scat, will help inform how much surveillance effort is required to confidently determine if wallabies are absent in an area and/or to prove elimination has been achieved.

The objective of this research is to determine whether translocated Bennett’s wallabies show high site fidelity when released in areas well outside the wallabies' natural range. The outcomes of this research may provide insights when planning surveillance in these areas as well as its implications when planning future detection probability research.

The illegal capture and release of wallabies in areas well outside their natural range, significantly compromises our efforts in eliminating wallabies. Understanding non-compliance behaviour in the illegal capture and/or release of wallabies and mitigation strategies to reduce this behaviour are the main objectives of this research.

Very little is known about the basic ecology of Bennett’s in New Zealand. This research aims to inform the home range, habitat selection and estimates of daily movement rates of Bennett's wallabies and the impact surveillance has on wallaby movement patterns. Potential to provide valuable insights into how one could optimise the deployment of surveillance and control operations.

Genetic relatedness between individual wallabies can reveal their source/origin and how animals disperse across a landscape. The purpose of this research is to establish a baseline genetic database which will enable us to examine genetic relatedness and dispersal for dama and Bennett’s wallabies.

A systematic literature review (including grey literature) of Indigenous knowledge, and its potential application to the detection and control of herbivorous mammals such as wallabies

To determine the baseline level of accuracy in detecting dama wallaby using a machine vision model on thermal imagery. Additional field testing of the machine learning model on dama wallabies.

To determine the baseline level of accuracy in detecting dama wallaby using a machine vision model on thermal imagery. The first trial tested the image recognition software on dama wallabies.

Manually processing 1000s of images captured using trail cameras is resource intensive. This R&D project aims to develop a prototype software model that uses Artificial Intelligence to automate the identification of wallabies from non-wallabies from trail camera images with a high level of accuracy. This will in turn speeds up the image processing times and a more cost-effective approach.

A landscape genomics study detected a new wallaby species (Parma wallaby) on mainland New Zealand for the first time.

Determine the effectiveness of delivery mechanisms of aerial toxic bait in areas where high precision is required was the driver for this research. This research assesses the efficacy of bait pods for delivering baits to dama wallabies under forest cover.