Plague of kangaroos threatens one of Australia's last remaining original native ...( This release is available in A HREF...)

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Canberra/Leipzig. Australian Department of Defence is currently culling hundreds of kangaroos on the outskirts of the capital Canberra that have produced heated discussions and hit international headlines. Australia's iconic animal has multiplied so much over recent years that Canberra now has three times as many kangaroos as inhabitants. The situation is particularly critical at two enclosed military sites on the outskirts of the city, which form an ideal refuge for the eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus). The grasslands there are now completely overgrazed - with dramatic consequences for other species. These areas are some of the few natural grasslands in Australia, making them one of the remaining reserves for endangered animal species, like the golden sun moth (Synemon plana) and the grassland earless dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla), one of the world's rarest lizards. Around 400 of nearly 600 kangaroos at a 200-hectare military site will be killed during the next days with lethal injections after the government ruled out a resettlement programme as too expensive. Resettlement would only relocate the problem.

For several years now, researchers from the Institute for Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra and from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig have been investigating the consequences of natural temperate grassland fragmentation and alteration on species diversity in this region.

The eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) has always been part of the cityscape of Canberra, also known as the "bush capital" of Australia. But even Leipzig-based scientist Dr Marion Höhn and Anett Richter of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) are surprised by the high numbers of them. In her doctoral thesis, Anett Richter is investigating how selected
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