Lambay Island was the perfect place for wallabies: in fact, there was already a small population of them on the island. The Barings have raised the dozens of red-necked wallabies on the island since the 1950s, with the success of the venture thought to come in large part because the climate of Lambay Island is not markedly different to that of Tasmania, in the south of Australia. In Ireland, the Lambay island wallaby population was deliberately released in the 1980s due to a sudden increase in wallaby numbers at Dublin zoo after a year notably successful for breeding. A herd of Fallow Deer (up to c. 80) roams the higher parts of the Staff at Dublin zoo were unsure of how to deal with the problem as they couldn't cater for all of the wallabies. However, the first wallabies were added as far back as the 1950s. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and sometimes the same genus, but kangaroos are specifically categorised into the four largest species of the family. This proved that the zoo rejects would survive in the wild. Dublin zoo placed 7 wallabies on the 600-acre island in the 1980s. He arranged a visit to the island and secured a 10-year deal to cull three wallabies a month from Lambay. There are 150 wallabies on Lambay island. Source: Skerries Sea Tours Ever since I accidentally came across the details about this island and the fact that there are wallabies in the wild, I really wanted to go there and see them. Lambay is a private island that lies 14,500 kilometers (9,000 mi) away from where wallabies are typically found. And as both groups were the same red-necked wallaby species, this would expand the gene pool of the existing wallabies on Lambay. Lambay Island Wallabies Okay, so the wallabies living on Lambay Island off the Dublin coast aren’t terrorising anyone, but we couldn’t leave them out. It's the largest island off Ireland's east… Rupert followed in his father's footsteps; in the 1950s, he decided to bring wallabies to Lambay Island. Then along came Cecil's son, Rupert Baring. A wallaby (/ ˈ w ɒ l ə b i /) is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. Now it is believed there is over 300 of them thriving on the island. In a long time if I was looking forward for anything, it is the trip to Lambay Islands. While that might sound like a bad idea, TheJournal.ie reports that Lambay has a similar climate to that of Tasmania — an island in southern Australia with a thriving wallaby population. Lambay island has notable populations of seabirds, a range of local fauna, some not found elsewhere in Ireland, and a colony of wallabies. 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