Leaving Quorn early, I had hoped to be lucky enough to find some Yellow-footed Rock-wallabies (Petrogale xanthopus) at their morning feed around Warren Gorge. However, a strong, cold wind made this unlikely. Later, sitting in a nice spot at Buckaringa, turned out to be as futile as the many hours that I had spent many years ago on my first visit to Australia, waiting expectantly, determinedly, patiently, impatiently, and overall unsuccessfully, to spot one of those nimble rock-bouncers. I finally had had to leave Australia without laying my eyes on one single animal, not even on a tail-end. On the occasion of a later visit, luck had been on my side many a day and it was during those occasions that I began to view the Yellow-footed Rockwallaby as the animal of the (northern) Flinders Ranges. Measuring approximately two feet (head and body) which is extended by a tail somewhat longer than two feet it’s colouring is absolutely marvellous. Head and back are greyish-brownish, front’ (chest and belly) white, the face ‘painted’ with lines of white fur running from ears along the eyes, sometimes joining up under the’ nose. Similar white stripes run along its sides from the shoulder area to the hip-area. All those patches and lines of soft yellow, brown, white, grey, black and reddish-brown provide a perfect camouflage against the multicoloured rock of the ranges. In a number of walks, particularly in late afternoon, I had been startled to witness a “lump of rock” suddenly darting away at high speed in agile, short hops along precarious ledges, utilising its long, ringed tail with extraordinary skill for the necessary swift manoeuvres. While mountain goats can perform and exhibit astonishing skills ill scrambling along what appears to be “un-climbable” rock, they look nothing but clumsy when seen side by side with rock-wallabies.
Those skills unfortunately did not safe the animals from being hunted and shot in huge numbers around the turn of the century. Killing was motivated by the interest of the fur trade and aided by the fact that rock-wallabies are a rather gregarious species, living together in colonies. Their skins fetched prizes around one and fourpence each on the London-market and apparently hundreds of skins were transported annually from Adelaide to London.
“There is no doubt that this wholesale slaughter of the wallabies before and after the turn of the century greatly contributed to the rapid depletion of their numbers.”
Tunbridge, “Flinders Ranges Mammals”, p. 63
” … was told by his father that a colony of rock-wallabies in good numbers before the turn of the century on the Druid Range . .. east of Hawker, and that were not subject to human predation, disappeared from the site completely soon after the arrival of the Fox. …
Prior to European settlement, people and rock-wallabies had co-existed. Rock-wallabies are prey to eagles, but this has always been so.”
ibid, p. 63
Since its protection in 1912, the animal has continued to exist in isolated pockets throughout the northern Flinders Ranges, but, as far as I understand the matter, its survival is by no means certain.
To the indigenous Adnyamathanha people the Yellow-footed Rockwallaby had been an important source of meat. Apart from food, it had supplied them with rugs for keeping warm during the bitterly cold winter nights as well as hags for carrying water, both made from the skin, while the tail sinew had been utilised for sewing, tying, making nets. Since nets were used as part of a trap for hunting wallabies, the tail sinews of some animal probably ended up as part of an ingenious trap to catch others. Another form of wallaby hunting was by sneaking up to the animal and hitting it over the head with a wally. The meat was cooked in a ground oven.
“One person told me about an occasion in the late 1940′s when her brothers and husband caught a rock-wallaby and brought it home to be eaten. Her father wanted to cook it as he said it had to be done in a special way. He singed the fur off it first, and scraped it clean. He then slit the front and cleaned out the gut, leaving the liver, kidneys and fat inside. He then sewed it up with a skewer ‘nindilparli’ in the same way kangaroos were prepared for cooking. What was different, however, was that he twisted the legs backwards and secured them, then placed the wallabies in the ashes. Others confirm that this was the correct way to cook wallaby.”
ibid, p. 64
Preparing the animal for cooking, then cooking it and finally cutting up cooked wallaby is governed by an apparently strong Aboriginal law: only a fully initiated man, a ‘Wilyaru’ is allowed to perform those tasks. While the law appears to have been broken occasionally, it remains as a powerful regulation even to those who do not observe Aboriginal law any longer.
“Cliff Wilton said that … he simply could not bring himself to kill and eat an ‘andu’ as that law is so strong on me’ … others said that even when they have eaten it recently, they have felt guilty because they are braking traditional law.”
ibid, p. 63
Since initiation ceremonies stopped around the middle of this century there will be no new ‘Wilyarus’ among the Adnyamathanha people and today only one ‘Wilyaru’ remains. The combination of these factors, according to Dorothy Tunbridge, is directly responsible for the cessation of the wallaby hunt by Adnyamathanha people.
In any case, traditional hunting for food by Aborigines was most certainly not a factor which had forced the number of rockwallabies down dramatically over the last 150 years. I believe a number of people are studying the animal’s behaviour, its habitat and possible threats to its survival and I am carefully optimistic, that for a long time to come high up in rocky gorges new colonies will establish themselves and grow, that little joeys will continue to hop into their ‘Kindergarten’ while mummy makes her dangerous journey down to the creek and its waterhole, and that those ‘Kindergarten-joeys’ will continue to happily drink water from their mother’s mouth after her return, indifferent to science and its very slow progress in trying to understand the mechanics of this technique.
This morning, at windswept Warren Gorge and Buckaringa Gorge, none of the few residential Yellowfoots dared to show up. Having survived a cold winter they seemed to be determined not to venture far outside until, in a few weeks, the bright yellow of cassia-flowers presented good food again.
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