Hunting In Tasmania – Wallaby - Hunting and the Outdoors

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Wallaby hunting in Tasmania not only helps boost the economy, it is a common game type to hunt and produces a great source of meat for the hunter.

Tasmania is an island off mainland Australia with a population of around 540,000. Home to the famous Tasmania Devil and one of the best places in the world to live.

Debatably one of the most abundant types of game, you need a licence to hunt, in Tasmania are Wallaby. In Tasmania there is 2 types of Wallaby you can hunt with a valid licence. These are the Rufous Wallaby (Tasmanian Pademelon) and Bennett’s Wallaby.

The rufous-bellied pademelon is a stocky animal with a relatively short tail and legs to aid its movement through dense vegetation. It ranges in colour from dark-brown to grey-brown above and has a red-brown belly. Males, which are considerably larger than females, have a muscular chest and forearms, and reach up to 12 kg in weight and 1 – 1.2 m in overall length, including the tail. Females average 3.9 kg in weight. The unusual common name, pademelon, is of Aboriginal derivation. It is also sometimes referred to as the rufous wallaby or Tasmanian pademelon.

The Bennett’s wallaby known as the red-necked wallaby on mainland Australia, is one of the states’s most commonly seen native animals. Often referred to as a kangaroo in Tasmania, males can weigh more than 20 kg and stand up to 1.5 m tall. They can be distinguished from the pademelon and kangaroo by their black nose and paws, and white stripe on the upper lip.

Wallaby can be hunted during the day, normally this involves walking through the scrub with a shot gun to see what can be flushed out or sending your hunting dogs in to flush them out, or at night with the aid of a spotlight, if you have the correct permits. Spotlighting is a legal form of shooting on private land under the Crop Protection Act. This requires the land owner to have a permit issued by DPIPWE allowing the hunting of Wallaby by spotlight, then the land owner supplying the shooter, and other members of the party, the appropriate permit as well. This year’s Season runs 24 February 2020 – 21 February 2021 and due to the number of Wallaby in Tasmania, there is no bag limit on how many you take. A standard licence fee for Wallaby hunting is $32.40 (as of 2020), this goes up every year, thanks inflation. In 2019 DPIPWE advised that there was 7396 Wallaby licence holders, that’s near $250,000 the government has collected from hunters in 1 year, from one of the six types of game animals you need a licence to hunt. The number of licences sold has seen a steady decline over the past 2 years, with no decline in Wallaby numbers being seen.

Wallaby meat has a rich burgundy colour, is very tender, with a mild delicate flavour and can be used as an alternative to veal or chicken. Wallaby meat has high nutritional benefits; it is low in cholesterol and fat, yet high in protein and minerals, which makes it an ideal choice for maintaining a healthy balanced diet. Wallaby jerky is one of my favourite things to make as there is little to no fat that needs to be removed from the meat. Its safe to say there is not a lot of different things I have not made with Wallaby meat. The added bonus is their hide is very soft and makes a great rug if you have the time to properly tan the hide. If you are new to hunting, Wallaby hunting is a good way to ease yourself into the hunting world.

A small investment of $32.40 to obtain a Wallaby hunting licence is not a huge thing to pay, when you have the ability to harvest as many Wallaby as you want for the year.

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