A wallaby may have attacked a nine-year-old boy in far north Queensland because he was seen as a threat to its mob's social structure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says.
The attack at a popular Cairns tourist spot has sparked calls for a cull of the area's growing wallaby numbers before someone is killed.
The boy's father, Alwyn Bailey, told the Cairns Post newspaper if he had not been there to fight off the metre tall wallaby at White Rock on Saturday afternoon, Morgan would no doubt have been mauled to death.
An EPA spokesman said a potential cause for the wallabies' behaviour was that they were social animals which live in groups called mobs.
"Wallabies that have grown up with humans and are released back into the wild may see humans as part of their social structure," the spokesman said.
"Children are about the same size as wallabies and they may be perceived as part of the mob by these wallabies due to their upbringing.
"There's a risk that these male wallabies may attack them to assert their dominance in the social hierarchy.
"Problems sometimes occur when people come between a male and a female wallaby when the female is in season."
The spokesman said that while wallaby attacks were extremely rare, animals fed regularly by humans were conditioned to see people as a source of food.
"If they approach people for food and don't receive it there is a possibility they may become frustrated and aggressive," he said.
"People should appreciate wallabies and kangaroos from a distance, do not feed them and give them as much space as possible.
"They are wild animals and can behave unpredictably."
The spokesman advised against people taking the situation into their own hands by culling them, saying wallabies were a protected species and permits were needed to manage problem wildlife.
