Critically Endangered
Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo
Dendrolagus mayri
The only known specimen is a male weighing 9.25 kilograms (20.4 lb).
Range and habitat
The Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo is a critically endangered, bear-like mammal native to tropical mountain forests on the island of New Guinea in Western Papua. It is a tree-kangaroo (genus Dendrolagus), a group of long-tailed, bear-like animals native to Australia and New Guinea that mostly live in trees and feed on plant matter. The Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo is likely threatened by hunting, and is known only from remote mountains on the Wondiwoi Peninsula in northwest New Guinea.
The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program (TKCP) involves local communities and researchers communicating to effectively preserve tree-kangaroos while understanding the culture and traditions of the indigenous people.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
Elusive and rare, it was considered extinct until rediscovery in 2018. As the elusiveness of this species is cause for debate on whether it is critically endangered or extinct, most conservation efforts should align similarly to other tree-kangaroos and attempt to reintroduce this species into a broader range. Since the Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo's current population is unknown and assumed to be extremely low, a genetic rescue procedure may have to be considered.
This will also increase genetic diversity if the population has a small number of individuals and may be suffering from inbreeding depression.
Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Wondiwoi tree-kangaroo, Wikidata item Q1869203. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
