Pouch-surfing could save wallabies

AS some of Australia's mammals stare down the barrel of extinction, researchers are hoping a bit of pouch-surfing might bring them back from the brink.

In a case of inter-species trickery, the new breeding technique involves transferring tiny joeys from the endangered wallabies into the pouches of other, more common species.

By swapping the young to a surrogate mother, it frees the endangered female from the burden of nursing their young and increases their breeding rate.

University of Newcastle Professor John Rodger said his colleague Dr David Taggart, a marsupial reproduction specialist, pioneered the technique.

So far he has tested it on the brush-tailed wallaby and the tammar wallaby.

In one of his most successful cases to date, a wallaby went from having one joey a year to eight, Prof Rodger said.

With 15 per cent of all wallabies and kangaroos either extinct or threatened, he said it offers the mammals a fighting chance.

And so far, the swapped wallabies haven't suffered from any identity problems.

"So far it seems that their (the joey's) behaviour, after they become independent, is appropriate for their species," Prof Rodger told AAP on Friday.

"Their behaviour is hard-wired rather than learned."

The professor and doctor are hoping to expand the cross-breeding program as part of a bid to establish a $200 million Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) for wildlife biodiversity.

A consortium of more than 40 partners, including universities, have applied for $40 million in federal funding to be rolled out over eight years.

Prof Rodger said they were due to find out any day as to whether their bid was successful.

"Everyone is obviously on tenterhooks waiting to find out," he said.

If successful, a raft of other species' pouches are in Dr Taggart's sights, including the long footed potoroo and mountain pygmy possum.

Dr Taggart's technique will be showcased in the up and coming David Attenborough documentary, The Rise of Mammals, to be aired in Australia in February.

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