Are there wallabies on lambay island

The conditions on Lambay, however, have proven to be almost perfect for the wallabies. The acre island sits three miles off the eastern coast of Ireland, offering isolation that seems to suit the shy wallabies. They are much less aggressive than their well-known counterpart, the kangaroo, and Lambay is a private island with few visitors to disrupt or threaten them. The one condition on the island that might give someone pause is the temperature. On Lambay, the warmest days of the year are often in the degree range, while the coldest days can dip into the low 40s.

By contrast, Australia's island state of Tasmania, where wallabies usually abound, enjoys heat in the 80s and above in summer. Only the coolest parts of the state near the coast and in the highlands see temperatures as low as the 30s and 40s.

To help them handle the Irish winter, the Lambay wallabies grow dense coats of fur. The island first became home to a bunch of wallabies during the s and s when the Barings, a well-known banking family that has owned the island since , decided to raise them.

There are rumors that Cecil Baring, the original purchaser of the island, introduced a number of species including tortoises and lizards, but none of them survived.

His son Rupert had dreams of opening a zoo on Lambay, but his plans never came to fruition. Peter Wilson was director of the Dublin Zoo in the mids when its wallaby population expanded rapidly. In the s, when the Dublin Zoo experienced a surge in wallaby numbers, the Barings agreed to take seven of them for Lambay.

Rupert died in , but the wallabies remained. Once, kayakers decided to step on the grounds and ran into James, asking if the legend about the wallabies was true. It was. James Baring died in , leaving the island to the Lambay Estate Company and his son, Alex, who is a part-time occupant and plans on opening the area to a high-end tourist trade. Alex did not respond to requests to comment for this article. Clearly, the unusual sight of roving, red-necked wallabies is intended to be part of the attraction.

But what do the animals make of Irish landscapes when the species was reared in Australia? In the Atlas of Mammals in Ireland, Ferdia Marnell recounts how in the s, eight Red-necked Wallabies were introduced to Lambay, surplus stock from the breeding population at Dublin Zoo. The animals were set free on the island.

They survived and bred, and their descendants still inhabit the rocky cliffs there. No dietary studies have been carried out to establish what the Lambay wallabies are living on. The normally shy but curious animals have been seen eating Blackberry leaves and in winter they are known to have helped themselves to hay left out for the island's cattle. Feral populations elsewhere in Europe feed on grasses, heathers and other shrubs. Have you ever visited the Wallabies on Lambay Island?

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