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Kangaroos in Ireland

A

Anonymous

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Today I got off work a bit earlier than usual and rather than commuting straight home wandered into the Dublin/Wicklow mountains for an amble.

Near the Hellfire Wood in the Dublin Mountains, where Kilakee Road and Cruagh Road meet, there’s a viewpoint over Dublin City (that's a complicated way of describing it, its a popular spot in the summer/at weekends). About 4.15 today, as it was getting dark, I walked from here towards Glencree. I passed a gate leading into a largely cleared area just in front ofconifer forest. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a white flash and first of all thought of a hare. Then I realised the animal seemed too large to be a hare (and definitely MUCH too large to be a rabbit), and was moving kangaroo style. I’ve seen Kangaroos in Australia, and the movement was definitely very similar. However the white flash on the animals rump seemed much bigger than that on the grey kangaroos I remember. The backside of the animal seemed too broad to be a deer. I stopped, and in the failing light the animal stopped too – it was in some bare, short conifers and I couldn’t make out much detail. It didn’t seem to be kangaroo like in appearance, especially since it seemed to be using its fore limbs for support. However when it moved it definitely jumped kangaroo style. I then realised there were two and moved slowly towards them. However they seemed very timid and skipped away even though I was a good bit away. The last I saw was the white rump flash disappear into dense conifers.

Is there a kangaroo farm in the Dublin/Wicklow mountains? Could it be a fallow deer? Or a hare? (I have a good bit of experience watching wildlife, and neither of the two obvious explanations is entirely satisfying)
Or some kind of strange cryptozoological mystical monster?
 
There's kangaroos on I think Herm... near Guernsey anyway. At least there were in 1989 when we were there.

I've put kangaroo as I can't remember the name of the smaller version.... all I can come up with is whippets :-D Not that I'm denying the presence of whippets you understand....

They were meant to have been brought in as novelty pet'garden ornaments I think.

Kath
 
YES!

thank you sj.... is that your good deed for the day?

mine of useful info you.... hero!

Kath
 
Could be a Wallaby, I think there's evidence of them breading in the wild here.
 
p.younger said:
Could be a Wallaby, I think there's evidence of them breading in the wild here.
Click to expand...

:eek: Breaded wallaby??

Sorry, couldn't resist. The black cape there, thanks.
 
There was a colony of wallabys/ies that lived on the roaches( a series of rocky outcrops popular with climbers) in Derbyshire some time back.Def. not a ul as I've seen them and taken photos.
 
Midnight said:
:eek: Breaded wallaby??

Sorry, couldn't resist. The black cape there, thanks.
Click to expand...

Well spotted, I don't like too many e's they make me thirsty.
 
Yes, deer I would think. I had a similar experience years back in the Midlands. Just at dusk I saw half a dozen animals leaping quite high in fields close to conifer woodland. I knew they were deer, as there were many stories of deer in the woods. These are descendants of escapees from a ‘deer park’ on a nearby landlord’s estate, they sneak out of the woods at nightfall for a munch on local farmland.

What you saw are probably fallow deer, which measure 80-85 cm at the shoulder and weighing about 45 kg. That is only about 2.5 feet or about the size of a newborn calf. And they have white rumps. People expect deer to be massive, probably because of TV pictures of red deer, reindeer, etc.

There must be wildlife rangers for the Dublin/Wicklow mountains, so maybe track them down and ask? Maybe best not to broadcast the presence of the deer too widely or the morons will be up there taking pot shots.
 
sidecar_jon said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/england/2050145.stm


odd story i found when trying to learn how to spell Wallaby!

beheded wallaby muti case in Cleaveland.
Click to expand...

This was a case investigated by the CFZ, they presented it at their talk at the last Uncon, I seem to remember it having more to do with unpaid debts (think the horse-head scene in the godfather) than anything Devil-worshipper related
 
I have never heard of wild wallabies in Ireland. I would imagine wallabies would build up numbers pretty quickly, given the lack of natural predators. Does anyone know if foxes would kill them?
 
On the theme of out-of-place animals in the UK I once saw a small herd of tiny deer in a field in Hertfordshire. I first thought they were rabbits but after looking at them through my binoculars (I had just finished a breeding bird survey on a nearby reserve) they were revealed as tiny deer-like creatures with large ears. When I mentioned this to my fiancee's family who had lived in the area for years they informed me that I'd probably seen DikDik's, which according to them roam the Hertfordshire countryside.

An internet search turned up images of DikDik's which strongly resembled the tiny deer things I'd seen. I also tried a net search on reports of these African antelope being spotted in the UK but turned up nothing.

Here's a good link to DikDik info for those who've never heard of them before, which I certainly hadn't:
http://www.awf.org/wildlives/67

BTW before anyone suggests this they were definitely not Muntjac. I've seen plenty of Muntjac in my fieldwork and these deer were much smaller.
 
The dik dik looks like a very attractive little animal, but at about 14 inches it would not be much bigger than a lamb. None of them in Ireland either - we are quite a boring country wildlife-wise.
 
I'm not entirely convinced that they were DikDik's as I saw 5 if memory serves me correctly and DikDik's don't live in herds. Perhaps these guys had grouped together through their confusion at finding themselves out of Africa :D

Scarlett regarding your question about foxes preying on wallabies, I believe the average height for a red fox is about 18-22 inches whilst a wallaby is about 2.5 to 3 foot tall so I don't think a fox could take down a healthy animal, but that's only a guess
 
They wouldn't need to. Dingoes are much smaller than even Eastern Grey 'roos, but they still hunt them. They mostly go after the young and the infirm (as you'd expect).

Of course, tigers and lions have a reputation for taking on much larger animals than themselves. Tigers don't even hunt in groups.

Still, I'd expect a full grown wallaby (depending on species) would be fairly safe from a lone fox.
 
Vercingetorix, I hope you don't mind me saying so, but I think you saw two Fallow or Sika deer. I spend a *lot* of time in those mountains - I'm a mountainbiker as well as a fortean researcher, and I know the Hell-Fire Club Woods, Masseys, Cruagh, etc. like the back of my hand.

We even go mtbing there at night, and have had some startling run-ins with deer in the dark.

You say you were going from the car park at Kilakee towards Glencree? Was the gate on the left or right? I know that after the first couple of bends, there's a gate to the left that leads up to some farm buildings, and a forestry barrier on the right.

Deer move a lot differently to what you might expect. When in muddy or scrubby ground, they kind of 'bounce' along. Also, as it was December, fallow and sika deer were in their dark winter coat, which gives them very dark brown back and rump, with a white flash on the hindquarters.

This photo shows the rump, and the difference between summer and winter coats:
http://www.oakcreekwhitetailranch.com/fallow1.jpg


About wallabies - there are actually wallabies living on Lambay Island, off the Dublin coast.


Some articles about the area:
Accidental Satanists »
Irish HellFire Clubs: NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE »
Irish HellFire Clubs: HELL-FIRE AND HARLOTS »
Ghost Hunt 2003: Adventures in the Dublin Mountains »
A Megalith in the Dublin Mountains: Kilmashogue Wedge Tomb »

Irish kangaroos:
Kangaroos on Achill Island?
 
Lambay supports the only colony of Grey Seals on the east coast. Although it is a long established breeding site for this species, it remains relatively small (45-60 individuals) probably because of the restricted area suitable for breeding. Grey Seals are listed on Annex II of the EU Habitats Directive. A herd of Fallow Deer (up to c. 80) roams the higher parts of the island, and a small number of wallabies (c. 10) survive in a feral state. This island may also hold the last Irish population of the Ship Rat, a species listed in the vertebrate Red Data Book.more »
 
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