Cats eating roos is not the problem. Toxoplasmosis in the 'roos is the problem, and cats are hosts for that parasite. Granted, it may be more of a problem on open enclosures, than in truly wild herds.
I understand that, I’m saying that if they don’t share a habitat transmission will be rare. Cats would have to poo on grass that 'roos eat.
It used to: Lycaon pictus, the African wild dog (also called the painted wolf). But these days African wild dogs are almost as endangered as Ethiopian wolves, so they wouldn’t pose a big threat to any kangaroos introduced today. In the past, though, it would have been quite another matter…
But … aren’t all of those large African cats Endangered Species these days?
Routinely. Just take a walk through the everglades and you will find entire land systems totally dominated by tea tree, white cedar, tuckeroo, blue gum, umbrella trees and around 100 other Australian species.
Large land masses have a proportionally higher chance of providing species that are competitive in any environment, but it is strictly proportional. There is nothing inherent about small land masses that makes any individual species less competitive. Because Australia and North America are home to about the same number of plant species, the number that have become invasive are about equal both ways.
In contrast, North America is home to 1000 mammal species, and Australia to about 300 mammal species, so you would expect around 3 times more of the American specie sot be competitive in Australia than the reverse.
In the case of animals, that’s further skewed because of the direction of introduction. While people have attempted to establish at least 500 species of exotic mammals in Australia, many of them form Africa nobody has ever, as far as I know, tried to establish any Australian mammals outside of Australia except in New Zealand.
But there is no reason why organisms from small ecosystems can’t become established in larger ones. It’s less likely because there are fewer of them, but proportionally the odds should be about the same.
And also Africa, India, China, SA, Mexico and most of South America, all of which are riddled with Australian weeds. Australian plants have become invasive at a greater rate than Australian mammals, because plants were deliberately established, whereas animals, by and large, were not.
It’s impossible to say without trying. Considering that only about 10 mammals managed to establish in Australia, out of 500 deliberate and hundreds of more unintentional introductions, the odds of any species establishing in an exotic ecosystem seem to be remote. It took almost 100 years of persistent effort to establish rabbits in Australia before they became acclimatised.
But if the odds of any mammal establishing in an exotic locale are 1 in 100, then kangaroos have about a 1 in 100 chance of establishing in Africa or South America.
That’s one of the major hurdles to farming roos. Because they are widely nomadic, they can’t handle grazing on grass contaminated with roo faeces. If you try to enclose them in a small area, they will die of diseases like toxoplasma. It’s nothing to do with it being an exotic disease, since Toxoplasma is ubiquitoius in native rodents, even those on offshore islands with no cats.
Kangaroos don’t form herds for defence. They respond to predators by fleeing
:eek: Ignoring spillover from urban areas, the highest densities of cats *are *found in outback areas.
As for “remaining” roos, I don’t know what that means. There are far more roos of all species in Australia now than at any time in the past 40, 000 years.
But the salient point is that the range of any roo in Australia will overlap with at least a a few hundreds cats, regardless of where it lives.
Roos certainly don’t all live in the outback. In fact only one of the 5 or so species is common in the outback.
Additionally, most of the outback is scrubland, whereas that is a threatened habitat in more humid regions.
Give them aq chance to get established and I reckon they’d thrive in Africa. The buggers are seriously quick and there aren’t that many Lions left in the wild.
Good tucker though.
Kangeroos actually don’t run away from predators. They stop and jump at the predator .
This works against a dingo, who finds its face planted into a kangeroo’s ribcage, gets all out of sorts and wimpers off. The dingo is an overgrown scavenger…
The small african predators will be able to dodge the kangeroo’s attack and latch on to a leg or tail.
The Lion , a real predator, is expecting to collide with the prey.
Kangeroos are fussy, they won’t like to cross any ground except forest or grass.
They won’t cross rivers, mud, sand, rock… They’d be easily trapped by the predators.
Rubbish
Utter rubbish.
Even worse rubbish.
Total bullshit.
Not only is every riverbed in Australia, sand, mud or rocks, covered in kangaroo tracks, but kangaroos are ubiquitous throughout the central sandy deserts, where there is nothing *but *sand and rock for literally thousands of square miles
And to drive home what utter nonsense this is, the three species of wallaroo actually *prefer *rocky environments and will really only cross open ground when traveling *between *hills.
And just to really highlight what bullshit your post has been, the final defence for a roo that can’t outrun a predator is to head *into *water, where they use their height advantage to try to drown their pursuers. Far from being trapped by predators because they refuse to enter water, roos enter water to *escape *from predators.
Seriously dude, GQ is for factual answers.
Roos are quite territorial and will stare down a predators if they can , camping in Kosciusko National Park I had them graze three foot from my night because I’m their land but hey can swim if they want and have been sighted miles offshore.
I recently watched some rednecks run down and stone a kangaroo to death, doesn’t really argue well to living with real predators such as lions.
Thanks! I was not sure about how common Toxoplasma is in Australia, compared to other areas. Yes, all kangaroos I get have a “possible cause of death: toxoplasmosis” until proven otherwise.
Cite!
Cite!.
Really, those claims are both utter nonsense.. Can you provide even a *single *example of a *single *kangaroo exhibiting territoriality or staring down a predator as the first resort?
Sure you did. :rolleyes:
Even a *juvenile *can sustain the speed of the world’s best track sprinter for distances of several kilometres. Yet “some rednecks” ran one down. Cross-country. While carrying large rocks.
What is it about kangaroos that prompts people to post such obvious nonsense? We seem to get multiple posts of the most incredible rubbish in every thread.
They can’t be that fast if you can catch them and tie them down.
I meant areas that roos remain in - the point being that areas that have been (sub-)urbanised will have few if any remaining. I’m well aware roos themselves are not endangered, I wouldn’t eat them so often if they were!
Ok Sport.
Nope. Lions and Cheetahs are “Threatened-Vulnerable”, which is not the same thing as “Threatened-Endangered”, and Leopards are only “Near-Threatened”. This doesn’t mean things are hunky-dory for them by any means, but it’s not quite as bad as being Endangered.
Somewhere, a cheetah pricks up its ears…
I know, their success rate is abominable. Part of the reason they’re Vulnerable.
Based on my viewing of various hunting shows, I believe these claims credible.
The Redneck is an ambush predator…
deleted
Lions and other felines are instinctive predators, though. They have evolved to hunt (mostly) very specific prey types by clamping their jaws around the windpipe. A lion could never reach a kangaroo’s windpipe, so they’d only hunt kangaroos if driven to do so by starvation.