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| credit: Peter Schouten |
You may have never heard of Scott's tree kangaroo
(Dendrolagus scottae) that is one of the most endangered animals on Earth and has loads of cuteness to boot. The small kangaroo looks like a crossbreed of koala bear and dingo with dark fuzzy fur, long tail and snout, and small ears. It has one problem in the charism department: it smells bad and the odor lingers. The reason for the tenkile's endangerment is human encroachment on its Torricelli Mountain home in Papua, New Guinea. Once isolated, the tenkile now struggles to avoid human settlements and is restricted to three isolated pockets along the summit of the Torricelli Range.
The Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) estimates there are about 300 tenkils left. Some local hunters remember killing as many as six tenkile a day less than thirty years ago. Modern hygiene and medicines have increased the human population as well as diluted local taboos associated with conservation areas known as "ples masalai" Modernity also introduced the gun. Although the tenkile has been described in the scientific literature since 1989, not a lot is known about its habits and preferred foods. An expedition is underway to place camera traps in their range to allow a more accurate count. Locals are being consulted about the "olos" foraging and breeding behavior. TCA has developed an outreach program to educate villagers about wildlife conservation. It has provided 320 water tanks to the fifty villages (~10,000 inhabitants) covered by the program. As a consequence, local people have vowed not to hunt the remaining tenkiles and help scientists study them. To see photographs of this endangered cutie and read an interview with a researcher go to
news.mongabay.com/2013/0604-dulaney-tenkile.html
