THOSE TRAVELLING IN AUSTRALIA will be familiar with the following lament from international visitors: “We’ve been travelling for weeks and still haven’t seen a kangaroo. Well, except for dead ones by the side of the highway.”
It’s true. Tourists may arrive on the flying kangaroo, but it can then prove trickier than expected to spot Skippy out in the wild. The solution for your next international guests or family holiday? Canberra.
There are two keys to success: inside knowledge, and a car. And yes, despite the occasional (controversial) urban culling, there are still plenty of kangaroos to be found in and around the ACT.
The larger eastern grey kangaroos are most commonly spotted, but according to ecologist Don Fletcher from the ACT Government’s Directorate of Environment and Sustainable Development, they’re not the only macropods in the ACT.
“There are common wallaroos – the males are black, but the females are a very pale grey – the red necked wallaby; or the swamp wallaby, which have nothing to do with swamps,” he says.
While numbers are hard to quantify, reports show densities can be high.
The highest densities, of around 450-520 kangaroos per square kilometre, occur in grassy valleys in the ACT’s mountains, like Tidbinbilla or Namadgi National Park; while in town, grassy areas commonly hold 150-300 roos per square kilometre, although forested areas like Mount Ainslie have about 10 per cent of that, Don says.