Tree Kangaroo

    A tree kangaroo is a large marsupial that, while less famous than its distant relatives like the red and gray kangaroos, can be found in Papua New Guinea and Australia. 

Sadly, tree kangaroos are an endangered species with an estimated wild population of less than 2,500.

    Tree Kangaroo's role (niche) in the ecosystem is to play the consumer role in the food chain, where they eat plants, eggs, bark, sap, grains, and leaves. One of their predators is the Boelen Pythons, but now their main predator is humans who hunt them for their meat and furs.

    Because they live in trees, tree kangaroos rely on forests, so when habitat destruction affects trees it greatly affects this species. According to the World Wildlife Organization, many tree kangaroo species are incredibly rare and most are decreasing in number.

    We should care about tree kangaroos because they are how kangaroos originally evolved, and habitat loss also affects climate change by lowing trees that help to reduce carbon levels, so trees benefit both humans and tree kangaroos. Tree kangaroos are also being hunted by local populations, putting them at an even greater loss in numbers.

    Current conservation efforts for the tree kangaroo include the Woodland Park Zoo's Tree kangaroo Conservation Program, which works with locals to track the forests and animals to learn more about the health, genetics, and overall condition of tree kangaroos since they are very hard to study. 

    Part of this conservation program involves doing deep research on forest geography to figure out what trees are best and most used by tree kangaroos and what areas they are most located in, which can help to figure out what areas need to be protected for tree kangaroos. This kind of research has created what is called the YUS conservation area in Papua New Guinea, which is a no-hunting zone and reserve for the forest.

    Helping tree kangaroos is difficult because they are practically invisible to humans since they stay up in the trees in areas humans don't often think about.

1. The first thing you can do to help is to learn about tree kangaroos since many people don't even know they exist!

2. Support restrictions on hunting tree kangaroos and other endangered species.

3. Support creating no hunting and reserve areas in forests to protect animals from both hunting AND deforestation.

4. Support funding for conservation areas: more information about specific tree kangaroo conservation areas can be found here: https://www.zoo.org/tkcp#:~:text=A%20Signature%20Program%20of%20Woodland,habitat%20in%20which%20it%20lives.

5. Support funding for conservation research and scientists' work.