Status of northern hairy-nosed wombat, central rock-rat, numbat and
Christmas Island shrew upgraded in latest threatened species list
The northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) has been steadily contracting its range to a single area within Queensland’s Epping Forest national park, 855km north-west of Brisbane.
Numbers had been increasing in that park from a low of 35 in the 1980s to 240 in 2016, according to a census conducted by the Queensland environment department. The recovery is due in part to the construction of a predator fence in 2002.
A small insurance colony of about 10 wombats is held at Richard Underwood Nature Refuge. The species was moved up from endangered to critically endangered this year.
Similarly upgraded was the central rock-rat or antina (Zyzomys pedunculatus) a native mouse that was rediscovered in the West MacDonnell Ranges of central Australia in 1996.
It is a critical weight range mammal – meaning it is the right size to make an ideal snack for a feral cat – and is one of 20 mammals listed as a priority species for federal government recovery efforts.
The federal government has committed $220,000 toward using helicopters to distribute specially designed cat baits around the mammal refuge area in the West MacDonnell Ranges, as well as funding a feral cat trapping program.
The baits, developed in Western Australia, are also being used to protect the population of the numbat, Myrmecobius fasciatus, in WA’s Dryandra Woodlands, home to the last wild native population of the species. It was upgraded from vulnerable to endangered.
The Christmas Island shrew (Crocidura trichura) was upgraded from endangered to critically endangered, while the Christmas Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) remains listed as critically endangered despite researchers saying it had become extinct.
Four species of bird – including Baudin’s cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus baudinii) one of three species of black cockatoo endemic to south-west WA – were upgraded from vulnerable to endangered.
Sixteen plant species, mostly flowering plants from WA, were also added to the threatened species list as endangered or critically endangered.
Nevin’s slider, Lerista nevinae, a three-toed lizard with tiny legs and a striped, snake-like body from an area near Karratha on the Pilbara coast in WA, was put on the threatened species list as endangered, along with a WA species of freshwater mussel (Westralunio carteri) which was listed as vulnerable.
The update did not downgrade the threatened species status of any plants or animals, but did strike two plant species – the hairy-fruited billardiera (Marianthus mollis) and the Hamersley lepidium (Lepidium catapycnon) – off the list.
It comes as conservationists are calling for a drastic overhaul of Australia’s threatened species policy and practice to save more than 1,800 plant and animal species that are currently facing extinction.
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