Tim Flannery: We can all fight the threat to our rare species

January 15, 2007

Climate change is now worsening the danger to Australian animals, writes Tim Flannery.

AUSTRALIA has the worst record of animal extinction of any continent. Since European colonisation began, about one tenth of our mammals — 23 species in all — have vanished. The victims are a diverse lot, ranging from obscure native rats and mice, to bandicoots, wallabies and the thylacine.

The extinctions began around the 1850s, as the great pastoral expansion pushed far into the inland. It peaked with the plague of foxes and rabbits that overran our land in the early 20th century, and only ceased in the 1950s or 1960s, when Australians had begun to care enough about their unique fauna and flora to institute conservation programs and establish national parks.

All patriotic Australians should look back on that century of extinction with horror, for it speaks of a disregard for our natural wealth that is truly shocking. Yet there are signs that, after 50 years of no species loss, the extinctions are starting again. This time, though, the cause is very different.

I trained as a mammalogist and am still a member of the professional association called the Australian Mammal Society, so receive its annual bulletin. This newsletter normally contains synopses of obscure studies of chromosomes, reproduction, the diets of our mammals, and such like. However, the latest bulletin (October 2006) contains far more disturbing news, for scattered among the more usual articles are contributions showing that no less than five of our unique mammal species have declined so precipitously in the opening years of the 21st century as to be in grave danger of extinction.

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