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Tina Janssen has nursed many endangered wallabies at
her central Queensland animal sanctuary, but a tiny joey suckling on a
milk bottle will be her last.
After 15 years, she is calling it quits on breeding the bridled nailtail wallaby."It was a very hard decision," Ms Janssen said.
"It was heart wrenching."The bridled nailtail wallaby is distinct for its small stature, the stripe on its body, and a strange fingernail claw on its tail.
It was thought to be extinct for most of the 20th century, until it was rediscovered in the 1970s by a keen-eyed fencing contractor on a property in central Queensland.
After that discovery, there have been many efforts to establish secondary populations of the wallabies at several sites, including at an abandoned mine.
Yet three of those programs have failed, with the small wallaby falling prey to feral pests like foxes and cats, as well as drought conditions.
Ms Janssen's captive breeding program was the last of its kind in Queensland.
There are now just two sites in Queensland known to house the wallabies — Taunton National Park and Avocet Nature Reserve — with overall population estimates at about 600.
There are also more than 1,000 of the wallabies at another facility in NSW.
A battle to continue
Ms Janssen said it had always been a battle for her volunteer-run charity to scrape together the money to look after the wallabies.With ongoing dry conditions in central Queensland, that work had become even harder.
"Particularly with the drought as well, we were struggling for food," she said.
Ms Janssen had also been battling with the Department of Environment and Science, which manages the protection of threatened species, to have her licence to breed the animals renewed.
With no new release sites for the wallabies in the pipeline, Ms Janssen could no longer see the point of breeding them.
"We felt we were not truly contributing to the conservation of this species," she said.
"There was no release sites for them. And the Government did nothing to help promote the species.
"I was fighting a battle on my own that we couldn't win."About six weeks ago, she asked the Department to come and collect about 35 of the wallabies that she housed in pens.
She said seeing them being taken away was traumatic and the empty pens were now a sad reminder.
"We have a wonderful facility that's now empty and all the Department had to do was try and work with us," she said.
Expert says more should be done
University of Queensland ecologist Diana Fisher did her PhD on the bridled nailtail wallaby 20 years ago and had seen government efforts for its survival ebb and flow."I'd have nightmares the animals were going to disappear during my PhD project," Ms Fisher said.
"There's been periods with not much attention paid to them and it's looked like they were going to get down to just a few dozen."Ms Fisher said the Department's efforts to protect the wallaby had improved in recent years and that numbers had risen since the lowest times.
But she said the loss of Ms Janssen's breeding program was significant.
Ms Fisher said it was necessary to help ensure the animals' genetic diversity and provide a backup population, if any of the other sites failed.
"Populations of 100 or even 500 wallabies is pretty small. Something could happen to them if they're only one place," Ms Fisher said.
"The combination of ongoing predator control, which has not necessarily been consistent, and the insurance populations is what we need.
"Not having a captive breeding program anymore is a bit of a concern.
"We have lost maybe 26 species of Australian mammals in the last 150 years. That's more than most other countries."In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department said Ms Janssen's license to breed the wallabies had lapsed.
The spokesperson said her wallabies would be re-established at Avocet Nature Reserve.
Ms Janssen was now concentrating her efforts on the southern hairy-hosed wombat breeding program, which she has also been conducting for many years.
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