Wallabies- forgotten pest?

Another one down: I've shot most on evening and early morning

​Wallabies are becoming an increasingly destructive pest over the South Island of New Zealand; their range appears to be spreading at an alarming rate- it’s clear the current plan is not working. I remember seeing my first Wallaby up the creek behind the house. I was out there with my .22 shooting rabbits- now their everywhere. Good target practice, however they’re a bad agricultural and ecological pest. They compete with livestock for pasture, browse seedlings in forestry plantations and browse native bush. They can also cause erosion leaving bare ground. Forest and Bird claims “their like giant rabbits eating their way through native bush, reducing plant species by 57%”.  My family is on a farm in the foothills of South Canterbury, and I think the economic effects will be felt shortly.
New Zealand effectively has four sub species of Wallaby. The three other sub-species were introduced on Rangitoto and Rotorua. This will mainly focus on the Red-Necked Wallaby, which was introduced to South Canterbury in 1874. They can weigh up to 18 kg and eat six times more than a rabbit. The Otago Regional Council (ORC) states that a Wallaby makes up 0.33 of a stock unit (meaning it eats 33% of a mature sheep with twin lambs at foot). This makes it a serious pest, as imagine how many Wallabies a sheep station would have on it at any given time.
A male and two females were introduced near Waimate, South Canterbury. The numbers reportedly increased dramatically to the first world war. By World War Two, they had extended their range slightly further south to the Waitaki, and north to the Rangitata watershed. Just after the war, they realised numbers had exploded. Control was necessary. Wallabies were reportedly all the way down to the coast as well, and cullers from the wildlife branch of the Department of Internal Affairs “didn’t cope with the natural increase and had the undesirable effect of spreading them to a more extensive area” (Victoria University, 1967). A Wallaby Destruction Committee was eventually set up (a branch of the Rabbit Board) at Waimate. Extensive aerial poisoning followed up by shooting, reduced the population of 500,000-1,000,000 Wallabies on 1,886,000 acres to 1,000-2,000 individuals (Victoria University, 1967). That is a solid effort to reduce numbers. Since the Wallaby board was dis-banded, they have once again spread as the responsibility of control is left to the landowner. In our area, Environment Canterbury administers this. If a farm hasn’t been controlling numbers, ECan will force them to poison their land.
 History has shown that shooting on its own is not effective. For many landowners this is the only method of control, which clearly is not going to work. Its not as simple as dropping 1080, Pindone or Cyanide on the hills either. Forest and Bird claims 1080 takes only two weeks in warm moist conditions but can be up to months in dry or cold conditions. Farmers would go with the latter to avoid poisoning stock, meaning they might not be put back out on the hills for a year. Good luck telling the bank manager that! Not sure how they did it in the 60’s but they did well. Heli hunting has proven an effective method of control. Once a big dump of snow comes along, they’ll shoot a whole heap from the helicopter as their easy to spot. If it was so effective with deer (to many hunters’ disgust) why can’t it work with Wallabies? I can think there’s two issues with that. The first is a cost point of view. Many of us who fly into roar blocks and the like know all about helicopter charges, however the bigger stations seem to be able to afford it. Smaller hill country runs (one-man operations for example) can’t really afford it, as there’s a lack of cash. The second issue is it needs to be a team effort. If one farm does it and not the neighbours (which does happen) then the individuals from the neighbours will come back and we’ll be back to square one. They don’t appear to have a fast breeding rate (1 offspring per doe) however their ability to move around and spread their range seems to be the problem. All farmers in each area aren’t going to magically decide overnight their all going to band together and crack down on the numbers. This will need to come in from a higher level (i.e. local councils and government funding).  
​
Their natural containment range from ECan is from the Rangitata to the Waitaki. Their main objective is to prevent the spread of them outside this area. Sightings have been reported at Mt. Oxford in North Canterbury, Banks Peninsula and Lake Hawea, even down in Southland. It is thought hunters might be releasing them in these areas to hunt them, which I hope isn’t true. It is clear this current management plan isn’t working; we need to try something different. Government funding needs to be used, as leaving responsibility up to the landowner hasn’t worked.
Anyone who’s keen to shoot Wallabies on most properties are welcomed, provided their responsible and courteous. We often see them in scrubby gullies meaning you might encounter them at close range, hence why some use buck shot. Rifles are more versatile however, with the most popular being .223. I’ve been using a .17 HMR which works well. The smaller calibre also means I need to place my shot. Mainly a nocturnal animal, many have the most success night hunting them. I have seen them a lot on dawn and dusk, and I have shot the most this way. This is when you’ll see them shifting to and from feeding grounds. Walking through scrubby gullies all night isn’t most practical with a spotlight, and on our farm, I haven’t seen many either.
Where they defecate, no other animal will graze near that area for a given period. I can’t find any details on why, but I’m guessing its due to odour from their digestive tract. This is what makes them probably the worst agricultural pest. Where we are in South Canterbury also has Fallow deer, and this may drive the Fallow deer out, or create competition between the two. As we try look after the Fallow deer, this is another negative consequence. This creates further issues if we go back to the idea of poisoning. The poison will kill off deer as well (not that DoC cares about it on public land). Their worms are something else- if someone gut shoots one or you cut one open, it looks like a bunch of spaghetti coming out of them! This also makes them bad for being carriers of worms (nematodes), allowing more to complete their life cycle and end up in livestock. Some people seem to ask if I eat Wallabies- my answer usually is that I’m not that desperate for a feed, I’m not living in the great depression. If they still question why not, I’ll tell them about the worms. I don’t want to touch them!
Where we are situated in South Canterbury, we also have Fallow deer sharing the same area. It is most frustrating when chasing Fallow. Anyone who has hunted Fallow knows how flighty they are, and the need to be quiet. Wallabies typically will sit in a ridge, sit there and look at you. Scanning around for deer in the thick scrub, you’ll head down the gully then across the ridge to see what’s over the other side. Wallabies will sit there and look at you. They get to kicking distance and I usually look them in the eye and think “I could so smoke you right now”. They look back presumably laughing at me. The classic “thump” you always hear when their running away alerts everything else in the vicinity. Sometimes the deer won’t stick around, other times they’ll put their head up and you’ll freeze. They’ll then go back to feeding and you can stalk that little bit closer or take a shot.
Murphy’s Law works against me so often, and when I take the .17 HMR I don’t see near as many. I have countered this by taking the .17 HMR and going out like I’m hunting deer, and the Wallabies must think I’m after deer, until they get a nasty surprise! We’ve got a black huntaway whose got an energetic personality. When we’re mustering, a Wallaby will pop up out of the scrub and she’ll be off like Beauden Barrett after it. She’s never caught up with one, but she always comes back drooling and keen to do some work.
It is clear Wallabies need a different management approach, as the current one is not working, and Wallabies are spreading. It is desirable to act early, so we want to do something before they become a serious problem. Us hunters can assist with this. Particularly in the case of landowners, if we whack some Wallabies, they might give us a bit of mutton or shoot a deer if available. Humans are particularly good at teamwork, so let’s put it to use.
It is good there is some more government funding ($27 million) to go towards Wallaby control in Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Canterbury, and Otago. No-one benefits out of Wallabies (except for pest controllers) so the time to act is now before it becomes a much bigger problem. Especially after the COVID crisis, we can employ people in these kinds of jobs. It appears the government is looking at this, and I think its sensible as we can “kill two birds with one stone” so to speak. We are creating jobs, getting money going round the economy while we’re controlling pests. This should pay dividends further down the track when we have less pests competing for forages with livestock. 

---