wild kangaroos in France

Chlidonias

Chlidonias

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hey guys,

I've just been reading "Chasing Kangaroos" by the great Tim Flannery, and he says that in the Rambouillet forest west of Paris is a colony of grey kangaroos about fifty strong, originating from a bungled burglary of the Emance Nature Reserve thirty years ago (so the late 70s or early 80s). Apparently they are well-known in the area. Anyone else heard about this, or seen them?
 
i think i have heard a brief mention of macropods wild in france, but not greys!!

there used to be wallabies living in the moors, but i read they died out during a bout of particuarly severe weather. not sure if any reports these days of them existing are actual substantiated.

one foriegn wild colony of wallabies I DO KNOW exist are the brush-tailed rock wallabies in hawaii. descended from a single pair they are veeery inbred but yet seem to be doing okay nonetheless.........they too are up to 50 or more animals.
 
I did see something of them of tv a couple of years ago and as you say they are well known in the area, there is a colony of red necked wallabys north of London in the UK, I think they got out from Whipsnade zoo quite a few years ago, Sometimes they are in the newspapers when they get hit by cars while trying to cross the M1 motorway, I have heard there are a few near misses with the traffic on this road.
 
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kinda weird isn't it? a zoo allows animals to be released and then takes no responsibility for them. i would say imagine if the same thing ever happened here, then i think of perth zoo and their free-ranging squirrels....
 
did perth actually release them , or did they release on prperty and they escaped

also, in sydney melbourne and maybe perth, squirrills once roamed wild, throught the euorpfication- where early voctorian era people released the animals - including foxes and rabbits- to make oz more british, european
 
I was watching the tour'de France this year and the comentators said the forest the riders were passing contained kangaroos. So there is another sourse, maby it is true.
 
next time I go to Europe I'm going to make a special trip to Rambouillet just to see if I can spot a grey kangaroo. I think the English red-necked wallabies may have died out (but they are always reappearing so they probably will again). The Hawaii wallabies are going strong. The NZ wallabies are doing very well in the South Island (red-necked wallabies) and Rotorua (tammar wallabies) but the Rangitoto ones (brush-tailed rock wallabies) have been eradicated and the Kawau ones (tammar, parma, brush-taileds and swamp wallabies) are in the process of being eradicated.
 
Zoo_Boy said:
did perth actually release them , or did they release on prperty and they escaped?
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five-striped palm squirrels were intentionally released by both taronga and perth zoos. fortunately (but supprisingly) the taronga animals died out. perth zoo is apparently still home to free ranging squirrels and the species has established itself with a something-kilometre radius around the zoo. whilst i know they attempt to contain the species to stop it further dispersing, i don't know if the responsible environmental body or the zoo have actually tried to eradicate the species completely or not. i suspect they haven't and that is a cause for concern. the zoo should know better....

melbourne city on the other-hand used to be home to american grey squirrels in its parks and gardens. i do believe i have read some anecdotal evidence of them being free-ranging in the zoo. however, i do know they were intentionally released in some of our major parks. the species eventually died out, though survived as late as the mid 70's early 80's. thats supprising, since melbournes parks and gardens are not much different in terms of vegetation to those of the US or europe - however, one major difference is that australian parks have their own native arboral mammal filling the squirrel niche, and its much larger and more aggresive.

i suspect brush-tailed possums are why melbournes squirrels (fortunatly) died out.
 
Taronga's Zoo Friends issue for March 2007 had an article about the squirrels. Apparently they were released in the 1920s and "quickly became a visitor attraction". They were still around until the 1960s when there was a rat plague and intensive poisoning was carried out. The squirrels were unintendedly (and, the article says, "unfortunately") wiped out by this poison. All I can say is that I hope the zoo doesn't get too nostalgic and release the ones they have at the moment back into the zoo! (I'm sure they won't.)
 
of course i'de love to see some of those prevost's squirrels in our zoos, but a few palm squirrels make a nice addition (as long as they stay in their cage!). we have very few exotic rodents left these days, thanks to no import standards being approved.

i dig the indian crested porcupines and the agouti.
 
There aren't many porcupines left, though - only one at Taronga and a pair at Melbourne, I think. (Plus some of different species in NZ.) Hopefully the Melbourne ones breed.
 
porcupines are long lived. i don't know if the melbourne animals are young enough to breed even if the zoo wanted too. the plan is for australian zoos to eventually switch to south african crested porcupines since they can currently be improted into NZ and a breeding program is going to kick-off there.

orana has north african cresteds too!!
 
What's the agouti situation these days? I know Taronga has at least one.

Also, Adelaide has (or had ) maras. Are they still going?
 
brazilian agouti - theres a few pairs pairs and groups around the place and some zoos are breeding them better than others. melbourne has a long history with this species but until recently was down to one! it appears as if we are pushing on trying to maintain them despite the high liklihood that this species is highly inbred.

patagonian cavy (mara) - pretty much dying out from inbreeding. melbourne recently sent theirs to be consolodated into one group at adelaide but i think there may be just one male. likely they'll be gone in a few years time.
 
patrick said:
brazilian agouti - theres a few pairs pairs and groups around the place and some zoos are breeding them better than others. melbourne has a long history with this species but until recently was down to one! it appears as if we are pushing on trying to maintain them despite the high liklihood that this species is highly inbred.
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There's around 20 left, although as you say Pat, spread across six institutions. There's talk of trying to get more, but the import of rodents is a big issue - particularly fast little ones that escape well, and would survive pretty well anywhere in Australia if they got out of captivity. Naturally, that makes them a tough one to import.

patrick said:
patagonian cavy (mara) - pretty much dying out from inbreeding. melbourne recently sent theirs to be consolodated into one group at adelaide but i think there may be just one male. likely they'll be gone in a few years time.
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Yep, there's now a male and six females at Adelaide, and a male and four females at Dubbo. Auckland has two lone females.

A number of zoos are keen to hold them, but then there's the same old problem - import of rodents is not an easy thing.
 
Surely both could be part of the South American area at Taronga when it's developed. The likelihood of escape is pretty small in a government zoo - when was the last escape?
 
Geoffrey said:
The likelihood of escape is pretty small in a government zoo - when was the last escape?
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I didn't say that agoutis had escpaed, but the risk potential of them surviving and breeding in the wild is pretty high.

And surely you don't think animals never escape from government zoos??? You could write a book about some of them, but clearly, since none of them are cropping up on the thread dedicated to escapes, they obviously aren't well know outside of the zoos!

And no, I'm not going to spill the beans :D
 
Of course I don't think that animals never escape from government zoos - several examples spring to mind (including the famous storm in which Mary the gibbon at Taronga availed herself of a convenient "bridge" [her fig tree] and couldn't be found for several days). However, with the notable exception of the squirrels at Taronga and Perth that were released many, many years ago, I don't think there have been any examples of escaped animals establishing themselves in Australia?
 
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