Age Structures of Populations of Kangaroos (Macropodidae) taken by Professional Shooters in New South Wales.

Abstract

Skulls were aged for 4623 grey kangaroos (of both species), 1030 red kangaroos and 84 wallaroos taken by professional shooters in 1973 around eight towns in New South Wales. There was no significant difference in the proportion of adult (4-9 y) to old (10+ y) animals between areas, but there was a difference between red and grey kangaroos. The proportion of young (0-3y) animals, however, varied significantly between areas; this is attributed partly to variation between shooters. A time-specific life table was constructed on the basis of a stationary age distribution; the annual survival was 0.661 for grey kangaroos, 0.729 for wallaroos and 0.790 for red kangaroos. These rates seem influenced by the minimum carcass weights of 12, 13 and 16 kg for the three species respectively, and by the greater tolerance of graziers for red than grey kangaroos. The limitations and potentialities of these observations are discussed and the direction of future investigations indicated.

Frequency and causes of kangaroo - vehicle collisions on an Australian outback highway

“…However, Russell and Richardson (1971) found a pyramidal age distribution for euros on Fowlers Gap. The same pyramidal distribution was found elsewhere for western grey kangaroos (Norbury et al 1988) and grey kangaroos when the two species were undifferentiated (Wilson 1975). The age structure of road kills in this study was similar to these results.…”

Ontogenetic growth and the development of a unique fibrocartilage entheses in Macropus fuliginosus

“…The Western Grey kangaroo is a large herbivorous marsupial found commonly in the South West of Western Australia. In the wild, individuals regularly live beyond 10 years, and occasionally (in captivity) up to 20 years (Wilson, 1975;Norbury et al, 1988). They are strongly sexually dimorphic in body size (males may exceed in body mass while females tend to weigh between 20-30 kg (Jarman, 1983;Jarman, 1989;Warburton et al, 2013;Martin et al, 2018) and also body proportions, with males exhibiting disproportionate growth in forelimb length and musculature (Warburton et al, J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 2013; Richards et al, 2015).…”

Seasonal variation in kangaroo tooth enamel oxygen and carbon isotopes in southern Australia

“…Animals were assigned to species where possible but this was often difficult for decomposed specimens and in the overlapping range of M. fuliginosus and M. giganteus (Caughley et al, 1984) where the species display few morphological differences. Specimens from the overlap zone were treated as generic 'grey kangaroos', as in Wilson (1975).…”