Extinction Crisis for North Australia's Mammals

Last week in Darwin Australia, scientists and land managers held a high level meeting involving North Australia’s extinction crisis of mammals. The workshop had 40 top professionals agree that many of the native mammals in Northern Australia were going extinct. There have been many reports from land owners and other game officials that mammals in Northern Australia have been declining in a very rapid rate. Some species have already been disappeared from over 90% of their past home ranges. Northern Australia is the largest remaining savanna on Earth. The problem with that is so many land management changes have occurred that the mammals in these savanna’s can no longer find food or shelter to survive. Many things have made this happen so rapidly, such as feral cats, unmanaged fires, and overgrazing of certain areas. In this meeting, a unanimous decision is made to do something about the preservation of the last remaining native species. This means using all resources to fill in priority knowledge gaps and create well thought out research plans. This will make the requirements of understanding the native species that roam in those areas even more of a necessity so that those species don’t go extinct from their native habitat. The good news is that we do know what needs to be done and some of those things are implementing a feral cat control and fire management which will dramatically solve many problems. This is without question one of the biggest biodiversity issues to hit Australia, which has the worst mammal extinction rate in the world. It would be thoughtless and careless if we as humans were not to do anything at all, some sort of intervention must be done. The only way for Australia’s crisis to go down is if immediate action is taken to help stop the extinction rate and create a better habitat for those animals in need.

Australia has a big problem, animals’ going extinct is a pretty big one and not to mention that it’s the biggest crisis of mammals going extinct to hit the world. It’s good to know that there are wildlife officials and land owners willing to work together to come up with a solution to stop this huge decline. With this combined effort and from wildlife officials, I don’t have a doubt in my mind that one day, there will be a sustaining population of mammals in Northern Australia.
http://www.australianwildlife.org/News/Extinction-Crisis-for-North-Australias-Mammals.aspx