Wallaby extinctions at the macropodid frontier: the changing status of the northern pademelon Thylogale browni (Marsupialia: Macropodidae) in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

Abstract

The northern pademelon (Thylogale browni) is a small to medium-sized macropodid that is native to northern and central New Guinea, but is also found on some of the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, such as New Britain, New Ireland and Lavongai, where it appears to have been introduced. In New Ireland, archaeological evidence indicates that it may have been introduced by prehistoric human agency c. 7,000 years ago. In the chain of islands that constitutes New Ireland Province, historical evidence indicates that the species also recently occurred in the Tabar, Lihir, Tanga and Feni island groups prior to undergoing a series of local extinctions and range contractions during the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore T. browni also appears to have declined on New Ireland and Lavongai, where it is now restricted to the remote mountainous interior. Much of the sudden range contraction coincided with the Pacific War (1942-1945), during which time blockaded Japanese troops confiscated local food produce. It is postulated that the privations of war led to an extended period of over-hunting which drove the species into local extinction in much of its former range. Furthermore, since the war, ongoing human pressures and a breakdown in the traditional ethnozoological translocation / re-stocking regimes which would normally have re-introduced this species to satellite islands, appears to have prevented T. browni from regaining its former widespread distribution in the New Ireland Province Archipelago.