Land use and dingo baiting are correlated with the density of kangaroos in rangeland systems

Rangelands worldwide have been subject to broadscale modification,such as widespread predator control,intro-duction of permanent livestock water and altered vegetation to improve grazing.In Australia,these landscape changes have resulted in kangaroos(i.e.large macropods)populations increasing over the past 200 years.Kan-garoos are a key contributor to total grazing pressure and in conjunction with livestock and feral herbivores have been linked to land degradation.We used 22 years of aerial survey data to investigate whether the density of 3 macropod species in the southern rangelands of Western Australia was associated with:(i)land use,including type of livestock,total livestock,density of feral goats,type of land tenure,and kangaroo commercial harvest effort;(ii)predator management,including permitted dingo control effort,estimated dingo abundance,and presence of the State Barrier Fence(a dingo exclusion fence);and(iii)environmental variables:ruggedness,rainfall,fractional cover,and total standing dry matter.Red kangaroos(Osphranter rufus)were most abundant inflat,open vegetation,on pastoral land,where area permitted for dingo control was high,and numbers were positively associated with antecedent rainfall with a 12-month delay.Western grey kangaroos(Macropus fuliginosus)were most abundant onflat,agricultural land,but less abundant in areas with high permitted dingo control.Euros(Osphranter robustus)were most abundant in rugged pastoral land with open vegetation,where permitted dingo control was high.While environmental variables are key drivers of landscape productivity and kangaroo populations,anthropogenic factors such as land use and permitted dingo control are strongly associated with kangaroo abundance.

Genetic outcomes from the translocations of the critically endangered woylie

Translocations are an important conservation strategy for many species. However simply observing demographic growth of a translocated population is not sufficient to infer species recovery. Adequate genetic representation of the source population（s） and their long-term viability should also be considered. The woylie Bettongia penicillata ogilbyi has been subject to more formal translocations for conservation than any other marsupial that, up until recently, has resulted in one of the most suc- cessful species recoveries in Australia. We used mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers to assess the genetic outcomes of trans- located woylie populations. These populations have lost genetic variability, differentiated fxom their source population and the supplementation program on two island populations appears to have failed. We discuss the conservation implications that our re- suits have for managing threatened species, outline some general recommendations for the management of present and future translocations and discuss the appropriate sampling design for the establishment of new populations or captive breeding programs that may mitigate the genetic ＇erosion＇ seen in our study species. This research provides some practical outcomes and a pragmatic understanding of translocation biology. The findings are directly applicable to other translocation programs .