Where’s Wally is fun. The figure with the red-and-white striped top and hat and blue trousers can be an entertaining challenge to find.
Finding wallabies is serious. Several million dollars a year are being spent trying to eliminate or contain them.
In some areas, like the Hunter Hills of South Canterbury or Rotorua Lakes in the Bay of Plenty, wallabies are an obvious and ongoing plague. They are like large destructive rabbits and thrive in various landscapes. Some rate them as dangerous these days as possums.
The menace is spreading from the north into Otago. Reporting the presence of wallabies, or signs of them, is encouraged for the public and mandatory for land occupiers.
There have also been suggestions of intentional release in Otago and to Banks Peninsula, acts of biosecurity sabotage punishable by fines of up to $50,000 or a year in prison.
The Bennett wallaby is the southern curse, and wider public understanding of the concerns is only recent.
They graze effectively and efficiently, chew out forest understorey, kill plantation forest seedlings, foul pasture, destroy agricultural crops and contribute to erosion. Three wallabies eat as much as a stock unit.
They are described as elusive, nocturnal and solitary, feeding in the open at night and seeking cover during the day. They are also efficient breeders, with two uteruses. They can support three young at one time.
The strategy is "containment" in the heavily infested parts of South Canterbury and Bay of Plenty — where the smaller dama wallaby is the pest — and eradication elsewhere. A few farmers in South Canterbury spend up to $80,000 a year on control because they have no other option.
The Government recognised the seriousness of the threat by stumping up $27.5 million over four years for control in 2020. Another $7 million a year after that is allocated.
The wallaby is yet another example of a foreign species being introduced and finding a welcoming home on the New Zealand range.
The Bennett wallaby was introduced to South Canterbury in 1874. It was a serious pest by the 1940s. By the 1960s there were up to a million in the area. They were eventually knocked back by concerted and co-ordinated efforts before numbers grew rapidly again from about 1990. Several types of wallabies were brought to New Zealand over the years for skins, as pets and for display. The Bennett wallaby — males weigh up to 20kg and females up to 14kg — and dama wallaby are the destructive legacy.
The Otago Regional Council launched its control programme in 2016, and pursues its efforts with the slogan "identify, report and destroy". Its goal of eradication in parts of North Otago is under severe strain.
It and Environment Canterbury this year put up highway signs encouraging the public to report sightings.
It has taken time for rural communities, regional councils and the Government to appreciate the extent of the menace and to put in countering resources.
Wallabies have also been seen as a curious point of difference for Waimate. The yellow shed south of Timaru on State Highway One, with its "hop" into the town suggestion, is a sign of that.
It is time for the wider population to be aware of where wallabies are and where they might be spreading.
Otago and Southland already have too many serious pests without allowing wallabies more of a foothold.
