Threats to New Guinea's Tree Kangaroos

Abstract Because of their low reproductive output, New Guinea's tree kangaroo populations are vulnerable to various threats. Direct threats include, in order of importance: subsistence hunting for food, hunting for pelts, trade of live animals, and wild dog predation. Subsistence hunting is suspected to be the most important of these threats to New Guinea's tree kangaroos. Indirect threats include industrial logging, monoculture plantations, mining and petroleum development projects, subsistence gardening, dry season burning, and climate change. The combination and interplay of these factors probably will seriously threaten most or all species of tree kangaroos in New Guinea over the next five decades.