Biologists have honoured the twenty-one native animals that Australia has lost to extinction since the 1960s. They've compiled a list of the creatures we've lost hoping to raise awareness of the devastating impact of invasive species.
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00:00 If you look at the conservation messaging, it's very much that we have to stop habitat
00:06 loss and we have to stop climate change.
00:09 And it is true, we do have to stop those.
00:12 These are two terrible problems for nature in Australia.
00:16 But if you actually look at the extinctions that have happened since 1960, they've nearly
00:23 all been due to invasive species.
00:24 They've been due to diseases, to a wolf snake that got into Australia.
00:29 They've been due to foxes and cats, trout.
00:34 It's only been two extinctions due to habitat loss.
00:38 And so the messaging isn't quite right.
00:40 I mean, there are other reasons to stop climate change and habitat loss, but we need to recognise
00:45 that there's this third massive issue if we are to stem the extinction crisis in Australia.
00:52 That's very much the reason for writing the report.
00:54 OK, so let's take a look back now at some of those animals we've lost.
00:59 First off, the southern gastric brooding frog.
01:02 Where was its habitat and what significantly affected it?
01:06 Look, it was just in southern Queensland in mountain ranges west of the Sunshine Coast.
01:11 And I remember seeing one.
01:12 I just got this dim memory of going out with a friend, Greg Chakura, and he knew them well.
01:18 And I remember him talking about how he was worried about the endangered red goshawks
01:22 in the mountains.
01:23 We never imagined that this common frog he just found under a rock very easily.
01:28 It was just this disease, chytrid fungus, that somehow got into Australia in the 1970s
01:33 and it moved north through Queensland, possibly or probably taken about by water birds moving
01:41 it from river to river.
01:43 And it wiped out six species of frog.
01:47 And we've got other frogs that are highly endangered in different parts of Australia
01:51 that it could take out next, although there's huge efforts to save those frogs.
01:55 So that was quite shocking because the frogs were going extinct from national parks, the
02:01 very places where the levels of protection are the highest.
02:05 But was there anything realistically that could have been done to stop that fungus getting
02:10 into Australia and then doing what it did?
02:13 Look, that's a very interesting question because we know that there are other diseases that
02:19 we don't want to get, like this highly pathogenic avian flu, there's a crayfish plague.
02:24 There are diseases out there.
02:25 I mean, I wrote the report for the Invasive Species Council and we are very concerned
02:30 by the budgetary level of the Biosecurity Service by the Federal Department of Agriculture.
02:36 It is just not adequate and they are prioritising biosecurity of agricultural pests, which I
02:44 guess is understandable, but there's not much left over for a focus on pests of conservation.
02:50 So yes, in terms of the future, what lesson do we learn?
02:54 There has to be an increase in border biosecurity and better strategic focus on what diseases
03:01 are out there that we don't want.
03:03 Government's response so far on highly pathogenic avian influenza, it's been terrible.
03:08 I mean, they've made some kind of commitment to improve that, but we haven't seen the results yet.
03:12 OK, what about the forest skink now?
03:15 Really handsome little animal.
03:17 Yeah, no, I used to be a guide each year on the Christmas Island Bird and Nature Week.
03:24 I'd fly to the island for a week.
03:26 As part of that, the National Park Rangers would show us the other work they were doing
03:31 and they started talking about how all the lizards on the island were disappearing.
03:36 And so they were trying to capture them.
03:38 They weren't sure what was going wrong.
03:40 And so they caught these three species, all of which are now completely extinct in the
03:45 wild, but one of them, the forest skink, they were only able to catch four of them.
03:49 One of them got out as soon as it was caught.
03:52 Two of the others died in captivity.
03:54 And so in September 2013, I'm looking down in this glass vivarium and I'm thinking, this
04:00 is the last member of a species just sitting there in front of me, all frisky and scampering.
04:06 Next year it was dead, species gone.
04:08 I mean, it's just like I've seen two species that have gone extinct.
04:12 You know, when I signed up to be a biologist, I wasn't expecting that.
04:16 I mean, there really is an extinction crisis going on.
04:20 And that once again was a quarantine breach.
04:21 We know it was Asian wolf snakes that reached the island in cargo from Singapore in, I think
04:27 it was the early 1980s.
04:30 And what about the desert bandicoot?
04:33 Look, if you go to Ayers Rock, if you go to Uluru, there's a big cave on the southern side
04:41 of that.
04:42 It's a sacred site.
04:43 It was also used as a roost by dingoes and owls.
04:48 They'd carry prey in there to feed.
04:50 And biologists sifted through all the bones in that cave that went back 100 years or more.
04:55 They found five species of mammal in there that are completely extinct, completely extinct.
05:01 And others that are now only found on offshore islands.
05:04 The desert bandicoot was one of those.
05:06 And so it's just shocking to think that there's a whole series of these mammals that were
05:10 just widespread across outback Australia.
05:13 You go to Uluru, big national park, the habitat is still there.
05:18 Most of the mammals that were found in that cave are gone.
05:21 It's something like more than half the mammals are missing from Uluru, one of the most iconic
05:27 national parks in our country.
05:29 So yeah, it's extinction crisis.
05:31 In this case, it's cats and foxes.
05:33 And so those three animals we've just mentioned, Tim, they're extinct in the wild.
05:38 Are there any of them left in captivity?
05:40 No, no.
05:41 So I mentioned the two Christmas Island lizards which are in captivity.
05:46 All the ones I've mentioned, they are totally, totally, totally gone.
05:51 Such a sad story.
05:52 Yeah, no.
05:53 And people don't know about it.
05:55 So what should people and governments be doing to try to ensure we don't lose more?
06:02 Well, I mean, there are quite serious efforts to find some way of dealing with cats.
06:09 It's very difficult to stop cats hunting.
06:12 So certainly supporting those efforts.
06:14 I mean, people are putting up more fenced reserves.
06:16 So some of this work is certainly happening.
06:18 But I mean, if you look at a disease that got in in 2010, myrtle rust, I mean, this
06:24 is plants are just disappearing out of our rainforests.
06:27 I mean, there's a native guava, there's almost none left in the wild.
06:32 They've all just died.
06:33 I saw one in a park near me.
06:35 Actually, that was another species of tree, another species of rainforest tree that just
06:40 died in a couple of years.
06:41 So there's much more work that should be done in collecting these endangered plants.
06:47 And then the other part, the other answer to your question is once again, biosecurity
06:51 is looking at what are the diseases and pests out there that we most fear?
06:56 What are the pathways by which they could enter into Australia?
07:00 Is the Agriculture Department in terms of its border biosecurity doing everything it
07:05 should be to stop them getting in?
07:07 And we know the answer to that.
07:09 They are not because they've got this really strong focus on a small number of agricultural
07:14 pests.
07:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]