Carrots and sweet potatoes dropped from helicopters to feed fire-affected wallabies
Thousands of kilograms of sweet potatoes and carrots have been dropped to fire-ravaged areas to help feed affected wallaby populations.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service took to the skies to dump thousands of kilograms of vegetables over bushfire-ravaged regions in NSW to help provide food for native brush-tailed rock-wallabies.
“The wallabies typically survive the fire itself, but are then left stranded with limited natural food as the fire takes out the vegetation around their rocky habitat,” said NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean.
“The wallabies were already under stress from the ongoing drought, making survival challenging for the wallabies without assistance.”
Operation Rock Wallaby 🦘- #NPWS staff today dropped thousands of kgs of food (Mostly sweet potato and carrots) for our Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby colonies across NSW 🥕🥕 #bushfires pic.twitter.com/ZBN0MSLZei
— Matt Kean MP (@Matt_KeanMP) January 11, 2020
Operation Rock Wallaby has delivered food to Kangaroo Valley and the Capertee and Wolgan valleys as well as the Yengo, Jenolan, Oxley Wild Rivers and Curracubundi national parks.
The operation is one of the NSW Government’s “key strategies” to support the recovery of the endangered species, 9News reported.
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