Rare wallabies found with offspring

ADELAIDE - Two rare wallabies have been found with babies, boosting hopes of a successful Australian mainland re-introduction programme.

Ten tiny Tammar wallabies were reintroduced into South Australia's Innes National Park, at the tip of the Yorke Peninsula, from New Zealand in November.

Four were killed by foxes earlier this year and two others also died.

South Australia's Environment Minister John Hill today said two of the surviving wallabies had recently been discovered with offspring in their pouches and there were high hopes for the survival of the fledgling colony.

"This is a fantastic sign," Mr Hill said.

"These creatures are so vulnerable -- and we have already lost six of the original 10. To have them starting to breed is a good sign for restoring this tiny native animal to the wild in SA."

Mr Hill said 36 more wallabies had now been released into the park.

The Tammar wallaby, once widespread in South Australia, was wiped out in the early 1900s by foxes, hunters and land clearing and are now listed as "extinct in the wild".

However, the species was saved by former SA Governor Sir George Grey, who shipped a small number of the marsupials to New Zealand's Kawau Island in 1870 to form part of his private collection.

The numbers in New Zealand quickly swelled and they became regarded as pests, digging and grazing in foliage and destroying native vegetation.

- AAP