Kangaroos in peri‐urban areas: A fool’s paradise?

Abstract

SummaryPeri‐urban Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) populations can reach very high densities in areas with remnant native vegetation and adequate pasture. This review summarizes the scientific evidence for the impacts of these high‐density peri‐urban populations, which predominantly involve threats to human life and livelihood (kangaroo–vehicle collisions), impacts on threatened species and ecosystems and declines in the health of individual kangaroos. The latter two impacts result from an imbalance between the kangaroo population and their food resources. We argue that urban infrastructure is a fundamental driver of many of these inter‐related impacts through population fragmentation, isolation and direct mortality of kangaroos on roads. Roads may also act as barriers to movement, isolating populations and promoting this localized overabundance. However, not all peri‐urban kangaroo populations attain high densities. Combined with the impacts of climate change on resource availability, peri‐urban development has the capacity to push local populations towards extinction in actively urbanizing areas via the impacts of habitat loss and/or fragmentation and road mortality. The successful coexistence of people and kangaroos in these peri‐urban environments therefore requires a better understanding of the impacts of urban infrastructure on kangaroo population dynamics, and a better policy framework to promote ecologically sensitive development.