The Black-footed Rock-wallaby [Vulnerable] or Warru (Petrogale lateralis) is one of South Australia’s most endangered mammal species. Warru once lived all over the rocky hills of Central and Western Australia. However over the past 80 years their distribution and abundance have dramatically declined and they now only exist in two small known areas within the APY Lands, near Pukatja (Ernabella) community in the eastern Musgrave Ranges and near Kalka community in the western Tomkinson Ranges. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Land Management and the Warru Rangers deliver all on-ground work using methods like track transects, scat analysis, trapping and radio tracking equipment to monitor these populations. Helicopters are used to deliver large-scale pest management actions and to conduct Warru searches in other, hard to reach areas.
In 2007, an official steering committee called the Warru Recovery Team (WRT) was formed to assist in the management of Warru recovery. Today the WRT consists of APY Land Management staff, Traditional Owners, Anangu Warru rangers and the broader Anangu community, ecologists from various organisations such as Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR), Australian Government Working on Country (WOC), Natural Resources Alinytjara Wilurara (NRAW), Conservation Ark (Zoos South Australia), Ecological Horizons and the University of Adelaide. The Warru Recovery Team holds regular teleconference’s and on-site meetings in order to apply a collaborative decision making approach.
Also in 2007 the first cross-fostering occurred when pouch young were taken from the wild populations on the APY Lands to Monarto Zoo. Black-footed Rock-wallaby Joey’s were cross fostered with Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies.
In 2010 a 4km long predator-proof fence was constructed to preserve the species in their natural environment and to provide a safe-haven for the Warru in the captive breeding programme to adapt to their natural environment, safe from feral predators such as cats and foxes. This fence is known locally as the Pintji (pronounced pin-chee)
In 2011 two separate releases of captive bred Warru occurred with a total of eight Warru returning to the APY lands and being released into the Pintji.
Also in 2011 the Warru Recovery Project proudly won the National NAIDOC 2011 ‘Caring for Country’ Award and also launched the Warru Recovery Plan (WRP) 2010-2020 and released the first WRP annual report.
In March 2015 another release from the captive breeding programme at Monarto Zoo saw a further six Warru released into the Pintji. During Pintji Trapping in October 2015 there was a record number of Warru captured showing positive progress within the feral-free area.
In July 2016, the East and West Warru teams conducted another successful trapping survey of wild Warru in the Musgrave and Tomkinson Ranges. Full story of the trapping survey is presented in a document below.
pdf Wild Warru Trapping Survey 2016 (3.81 MB)
pdf Palya Natural Resources Alinytjara Wilurara Dec 2016 Warru (2.40 MB)
APY Warru Rangers are working hard on country to save one of Australia’s most endangered mammals. Check out this video to see their work!
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APY Warru rangers are pleased to invite Gregory Andrews to APY Land in his role as Threatened Species Commissioner to come and visit our country, to share our pride in the success of the Warru recovery project, supported by the Australian Government Working on Country program.
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Wildlife Australia – Winter 2016 Article by Magdalena Zabek – Ecologist - working with the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Management Team
‘Magdalena’s research focus is on how environmental conditions influence the population dynamics of wild animals. Magdalena’s work demonstrates the value of better understanding the ecology of animals to formulate effective wildlife management programs. Her recent focus is to help increase the population size and distribution of black-footed rock wallaby (warru) on the APY Lands.’
pdf Wild horses Magda Zabek Winter 2016 (1.73 MB)
