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
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I agree with you that Australia has a big problem. Extinction is a big problem to deal with, but animals go extinct all the time without even being noticed. Hopefully the wildlife officials can get the landowners to work with them on helping slow and eventually stop the extinction. Like you said if we helped to slow the land development lots of habitat can be saved and help save some of these animals.
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! Hopefully it is not to late for some of these populations. I think that history can tell you that if a population gets below a certain number it is almost impossible for them to make a comback. Ferral cats and wildfires are huge problems and if they are kept in control this problem should be helped some. The main problem is the rapid expansion and destuction of habitat that these animals need to survive as a population. Humans are the reason for this. If land owners are willing to work with wildlife biologists some hope should remain for these creatures because most of the time that is half the battle. (getting land owner approval). Good Blog!
ReplyDeleteI think that there need s to be something done to stop extinctions. If we can stop them we should be doin soo. Habitat loses and introduction of animals are having large impacts of native species. I Wonder how hard it would be to get ride the feral cats i know some people that dont like cats maybe send them down their to do some hunting "LOL".And i think that there needs to be more refuges set up to protect what habitat is left.
ReplyDeleteExtinction of any species is never a good thing. A lot of this has been caused by humans and the changes that we make in all ecosystems. The introduction of feral cats can have a very devastating effect on populations of smaller animals that these cats feed on, especially on an island where they never were before. Over grazing in areas also has a very negative effect on some animals because it leaves no food for them. Unchecked wildfires have been around longer than humans have so this shouldn’t be a very big problem with the animals that are there as they have evolved with it, one of the biggest problems with wildfire today is over suppression of fires.
ReplyDeleteIt isn’t right that these species are going extinct. Humans should do all we can to help since it is mainly our fault that these species are going extinct. It is because of us that feral cats are on Australia and many other species that have been introduced such as rabbits and cane toads. If we don’t start to do something to help these species out we may lose them forever. We can help contain fires, but can’t totally control them. Especially since many are started naturally.
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