A smoky mouse breeding program in Canberra is successfully boosting the native rodent's numbers and genetic diversity in the wild, offering hope for other species in decline.
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00:00In a tiny climate controlled shipping container in Canberra, researchers are trying to get
00:07critically endangered native mice to mate.
00:10We slowly introduce the male and the female together over a period of days, about a week.
00:14We have a set up that allows them to sort of smell each other and start communicating
00:18ways before they're physically introduced and able to actually interact.
00:22This just helps them feel more secure with each other to start to bond before we give
00:25them access to each other and then most of the time it goes really well.
00:29Unlike the common mouse, smoky mice do not breed in plague proportions.
00:33With up to eight offspring a year, they struggle to survive in the wild with feral cats, habitat
00:38loss and limited prospects on the mating scene.
00:41Essentially your options for a mate are quite limited and the risk of breeding with related
00:45animals increases and we call that inbreeding.
00:48So as inbreeding increases we lose genetic diversity.
00:51The smoky mouse isn't the only species in a dwindling gene pool.
00:55A groundbreaking global study has revealed an alarming decline in genetic diversity across
01:00species worldwide.
01:02Published in the scientific journal Nature, it was an extraordinary international effort.
01:0757 scientists from 20 countries trawling through over 80,000 scientific articles published
01:14across 30 years.
01:15What we found was genetic diversity is declining globally.
01:19So there was an overall loss of genetic diversity across the tree of life.
01:24This was particularly bad for mammals and birds.
01:28That's largely being driven by land use changes, feral animals, disease, climate change and
01:33human activities like hunting and logging.
01:36But they also found positive news.
01:38The conservation actions we found were associated with an increase in genetic diversity or a
01:44maintenance of genetic diversity, so no loss, were supplementation, so adding new individuals
01:50to a population.
01:51What I want people to take away from this is that if we invest in these things we can
01:57make a change.
01:58For the smoky mouse, that process starts with release into a predator-free enclosure with
02:02food, water and a pre-dug burrow.
02:06It's basically a bucket in the ground with a pipe coming out of it that I've buried for
02:10them.
02:11Protecting the resilience of species, great and small.