QUICK FACTS: EXTINCTION
To all non-Victorians: do you know what that state’s faunal emblem is?
It’s the Leadbeater’s Possum and, according to Australia’s leading expert on the animal, it is nearing extinction.
The expert’s recent resignation from the Victorian government’s advisory panel on the possum has ruffled some fur, bringing to stark light a barney between conservationists and the logging industry.
Professor David Lindenmayer, an ecologist at the Australian National University, says there are only between 1,500 and 2,000 of the Leadbeater’s Possum left in Victoria, making it the rarest animal in the country.
The tiny marsupial is strongly dependent on large old trees in Victoria’s Central Highlands mountain ash forests and the advisory committees investigations show that there’s been a massive loss of these forests, through 50 years of woodchip logging and, more recently, fires.
The Leadbeater’s habitat is down to a few remaining patches of old forests.
Professor Lindenmayer says the 2009 Black Saturday fires destroyed some 70,000 hectares of ash forests – about 45% of the Leadbeater’s homeland – and ought to have triggered a rethink of the state’s logging policies and agreements.
Instead, apparently blind to the scientific findings, the Professor says the Baillieu government has over-committed the remaining forests to logging with 20-year contracts that will “lock in” the extinction of the possum.
The Institute of Foresters (needless to say), disagrees.
“About two-thirds of Victoria’s mountain ash forests are contained in parks and reserves where timber harvesting is excluded. So, an ongoing timber industry restricted to the other one-third of these forests does not ‘lock in’ the extinction of the possum as Professor Lindenmayer claims,” says spokesman Mark Poynter.
“Indeed,” he continues, “the possum is largely absent from timber production forests with its best habitat in the parks and reserves. A decline in the number of standing ”stag” trees in these reserved areas is becoming a problem, but it will not be solved by ending timber harvesting in other areas.”
In fact, says the industry, the Leadbeater’s Possum relies on periodic fires to renew its habitat and the animal’s population has waxed and waned as the “forests have burnt and regrown”.
Professor Lindenmayer says he presented his findings on the parlous future of the Leadbetter’s possum to the Victorian Government’s environmental authorities and that the government has failed to produce even an “action statement” despite the fact that the Leadbeater’s possum is listed as an endangered species.
Consider this: the Leadbeater’s possum live in colonies of up to 12 animals and only one pair per colony will breed annually, producing just 2 joeys. If the litter dies, the females may breed again in the same season. But they nest in the hollows of Stags in the forests.
As the industry says, these stags are in decline. They’ll be in even greater decline if logging continues at the same pace.
The Leadbeater’s possum will wither and die without careful conservation effort.
But the Leadbeater’s possum isn’t the only animal facing extinction in Australia. In fact fifty-seven of Australia’s 349 mammals are under threat.
That’s a higher rate of threat than in any other developed nation, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a global environmental organisation that examines threatened flora and fauna and compiles a “red list”.
Since European settlement, some 28 mammal species have become extinct, along with 126 plants and other animals. Twenty of the now extinct mammals were found nowhere else in the world.
The list of extinct, threatened and near threatened birds is a long and lamentable one. Some 13 per cent of Australian birds are at risk. Reptiles, insects, fish, amphibians, flora are all under pressure… but perhaps the most iconic are our mammals.
These are the mammals currently facing extinction:
- The Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat is one of the rarest animals in the world and is critically endangered. Only one small population survives in the Epping Forest National Park in Central Queensland. The decline in its population is attributed to loss of habitat to cattle farming.
- The Brush Tailed Bettong were the so-called little Aussie battlers which tilled the landscape until European settlers arrived. They were extinct in South Australia until 1975 when they were re-introduced from species found in WA. They’re endangered because of natural predators and land clearance.
- The Western Barred Bandicoot was first recorded in 1817 and were widespread across Australia. But the last siting on mainland Australia was in 1922. They are now found only on Barrow and Dorre Islands having lost their mainland habitat to predators and farming.
- The Dugong with their grey coloured nostrils at the top of their snout are found in coastal waters off northern Australia but are classified as vulnerable because they’re hunted for their meat, skin, bones and tusks. Their habitat is also threatened by oil spills and fishing nets which entrap them.
- Lumholtz’s Tree Kangaroo is found only in north eastern Queensland in rainforests. But it’s under threat from logging. It’s now classified as vulnerable.
- The Greater Bilby was once very common in central Australian deserts but fire, foxes and grazing cattle have put it on the endangered species list.
- The Numbat was once common across the southern parts of Australia but is now on the endangered list thanks to loss of its natural habitat, cleared for agriculture.
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13 Responses to this article
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the*sparrow September 24, 2012
We should do everything we can to preserve animal habitats, but this will never be enough. Eventually the pressure of human population growth will result in habitat loss and ultimately extinction in the wild for every species of non-human animal that cannot co-exist with us in our built environment. I find this heartbreaking, but really it has been obvious for years. Many people dislike the concept of zoos or of any animal in captivity, but we need to face facts and allow extensive captive breeding programs within wildlife preservation reserves, or we will lose the vast majority of the astonishing diversity and beauty of life on our planet.
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Carol September 24, 2012
Thank you Monica for your well researched Hoopla articles. This is important & receives too little publicity. Please “share” & “like” & “forward” Hooplarians. Publicity is paramount. Make this a work place & family dinner table discussion. Here is another worthwhile organisation http://www.australianwildlife.org/
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Ro. Watson September 24, 2012
Dreadful list~I support the Greens ….
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Ro. Watson September 24, 2012
Oh yes~and every year I buy beautiful calendars from Protection of the Earth and Wildlife which is W.A based~ but has gorgeous animal pictures from all over Australia-you can contact them by phone on(08)92271181~or write to them ~ Protection Of The Earth And Wildlife,156 Palmerston Street, Perth.
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Linda Robinson September 24, 2012
Some zoos have programs where they are already trying to breed some of these species; NOT everyone is trying to make them extinct.
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Ro. Watson September 24, 2012
..anyway,what is a STAG for possums~ details are important..
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Monica September 24, 2012
Generally eucalypts Ro.Watson.
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Kathryn September 24, 2012
A stag is a dead tree. The really big ones with hollows in them are critical habitat for nesting. They’re also important as look-outs for birds of prey (e.g. sea eagles).
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Pam September 24, 2012
Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum is a community based not-for-profit organisation which has been lobbying the Victorian Govt and Federal Govt since 2004 when it was formed, to take action to stop the destructive clear felling methods of VicForests. The group has worked tirelessly in the field with Prof Lindenmayer and Parks Victoria staff to monitor and identify the species and its habitat. The frustration levels of the community are rising day by day as we see the multiple logging trucks taking away the forest from before dawn until well after dark to be turned into pulp and sent to Japan to manufacture paper. Everyone and every company should be signing the Ethical Paper Pledge to refuse to purchase REFLEX paper which is made from these forests. Over 85% of all timber extracted from Leadbeater’s Possums habitat turned into woodchips. http://www.leadbeaters.org.au
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liza September 25, 2012
We are appalling.Still don’t get the bigger picture.No man is an island and we no longer can take an antibiotic and expect the bug to go away.So integrated are we in the global ups and downs that we have seen the effects of Affluenza.
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Cheryl September 25, 2012
The Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species http://www.fame.org.au does exactly what our name says: helps people and organisations (like the Friends of Leadbeater’s) protect endangered Australian species. History demonstrates that where people and wildlife are in conflict over a resource the mighty dollar triumphs. Ironically, money can mean the vital difference between survival and extinction for species that can’t compete – either with people, or with the feral predators we introduced to this country. Our most endangered species need a safe place to live, in natural habitat, and that requires both money and political will. FAME supports projects that give endangered species their best chance of survival. If a suitable area of old growth forest was set aside for Leadbeater’s Possum it might have that chance.
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Don September 26, 2012
These animals are indicators for the health of their habitats. Leadbeater’s possum a great example for our watershed forest – ‘Watershed’, yes these forests are a major source of Yarra & Goulburn river water.
Captive breeding program’s although good – are most definitely not the solution! Very expensive!
Look after the habitat – the current timber cut is way too great! Let’s be stewards of this landscape, in addition to water – other benefits from our wet forests include provide climate amelioration and serious carbon sequestration (ANU research findings found this the most carbon dense forest on the planet).
