Britain’s Rare Species Threatened by Hikers : Walks on Wild Side a Woe to Wallabies

Tourists in central England’s Peak District are sometimes startled to see wallabies, natives of Australia, bounding wild in the moors and woods.

In a rugged area better known for sheep and hares, a small group of Tasmanian wallabies has survived since 1939, when their ancestors were freed from a zoo to save on wartime spending.

But although the animals have delighted many hikers seeking to spot them in such an incongruous setting, some naturalists fear that trekkers are threatening the wallabies’ survival by disrupting their mating and feeding.

There are also wild colonies of wallabies, which are smaller cousins of the kangaroo, in Scotland and in Sussex in southern England. These are descendants of animals that escaped from zoos.

‘Extremely Shy’

“Wallabies are extremely shy,” said Sir Christopher Lever, an author who has written books on alien species in Britain and elsewhere. “They are easily disturbed by people walking about.”

He said harsh winters and road accidents also helped cause numbers in the Peak District to drop to a dozen from a 1962 figure of 50.

Naturalists have complained to local officials that efforts to protect the colony by keeping hikers away are limited by a 1981 law, which bans freeing non-native animals into the wilds without a license.

“The wallaby should be saved as it does no harm and is at home in Britain,” said Derek Yalden, a zoologist from nearby Manchester who has been studying the colony for decades and is one of the naturalists concerned with the wallabies’ fate.

‘Animals Could Be Helped’

“The animals could be helped if the area were closed off to people, but it is difficult for conservation groups to do that as the introduction of foreign species is an offense,” he added.

Local authorities say they can do little more than leave out bales of hay during cold winters and indirectly help the wallabies by conserving other animals’ habitats and encouraging the growth of shrubs to offer more cover.

Officials of the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC)--the government advisory body working with local conservation groups--admit that their policy toward alien species is inconsistent, as some non-native birds receive special conservation efforts.

But they insist that priorities must lie with domestic species.

Few Wallabies

“We are against introduction on principle to avoid an unknown dangerous mistake,” the NCC’s David Morgan said. “There are very few wallabies, but many people fear that they could become pests in large numbers and threaten agricultural interests.”

Lever admitted that in New Zealand, the only other country besides Britain where the creatures run free outside their native Australia, about 500,000 wallabies have plagued farmers, sparking an extermination campaign to reduce numbers.