Fight to help wallaby joeys

WILDLIFE activists have helped raise thousands of dollars towards caring for baby wallabies that have survived mass mystery marsupial deaths on Cairns’ northern beaches.

The Agile Project has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to care for orphaned joeys found in the pouches of agile wallabies that have been turning up dead within the Trinity Beach sporting precinct since late last week.

The conservation group says so far there have been 45 wallabies found dead on the AFL oval, with seven joeys requiring care.

However, Cairns Regional Council, which has been investigating the cause of the deaths alongside the Department of Environment and Science, has a more conservative estimate of the wallaby death toll, only confirming the deaths of 15 mature wallabies in the area.

The Agile Project, which has suggested the wallabies may have been poisoned, is awaiting results of toxicology tests undertaken by vets on some of the carcasses of the dead marsupials.

The council’s spokesman, however, said their own initial investigations indicated the wallabies’ deaths may have been due to natural causes.

“Initial indications suggest external factors have caused stress-related deaths, likely to involve dogs, however this is yet to be verified,” he said.

“Council is continuing to monitor the area and is calling on the public to provide any information they may have on this issue.”

Meanwhile, The Agile Project is still engaged in a legal battle with the Queensland Government over approval to shift dozens of wallabies out of Trinity Beach to a private wildlife sanctuary.

Agile Project co-ordinator Shai Ager wrote on the organisation’s GoFundMe page that the group had offered to perform the relocation at no cost to the government.

“A relocation is the only viable solution, and has many experts on board, such as ecologists, vets (specialising in native species), botanists, wildlife specialists, and zoologists,” she wrote.

“Culling will not be accepted by our community, as our residents do not want to see these innocent animals slaughtered by the hundreds.

“The ‘do nothing’ approach is obviously not working either, as we’ve had over 500 dead by car strikes in the past 14 months.” Doing nothing is also cruel, she said.

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