Heavy rains after the Black Summer megafires drove rapid regrowth of plants. But these signs of recovery can hide the true story.
- Professor Emeritus in Terrestrial Ecology, University of Sydney
Marsupial rescue, rehabilitation and release statistics from New South Wales and Kangaroo Island during Black Summer fires reveal poor survival rates, despite the courageous efforts of volunteers.
We need every tool at our disposal to stop feral cats and foxes from decimating Australia’s incredible wildlife after fires. Artificial refuges show promise.
Only three specimens of the blue-grey mouse ever existed, and two are lost. We plunged into a search for the third, in the hope we might find the species isn’t extinct at all – just missing.
Cats kill a staggering 1.7 billion native animals each year, and threaten at least 120 species with extinction. Five experts analyse a parliamentary report on the problem.
When cats were introduced to Australia, they brought several diseases with them. These diseases are taking a big toll on human health and the economy — but there are things we can do.
Roaming pet cats kill 390 million animals per year in Australia. Most of the animals are native to Australia.
Introduced species are often targeted for culling in conservation, but killing charismatic animals like foxes can be controversial.
There’s logic in burying carcasses as they can harbour nasty diseases, but they also help landscapes recover from fire.
In a matter of weeks, the fires have subverted decades of dedicated conservation efforts for many threatened species.
A survey of 32,000 samples of dingo droppings and stomach contents reveal that this predator’s appetite is as wide-ranging as Australia’s landscapes. But medium and large mammals are top of the menu.
Australian wildlife can generally cope with drought, but they’re not prepared for the combination of people, introduced animals, and no water.
The average Australian feral cat kills 225 reptiles a year, which adds up to 596 million in total, according to a new estimate. Pet cats, meanwhile, kill a further 53 million.
Cats have a bad reputation as wildlife killers (deservedly so). But dogs aren’t off the hook: new research shows domestic dogs have contributed to the extinction of at least 11 species.
Cats, rats, foxes and other mammal predators have been implicated in 60% of the world’s animals extinctions.
Research published this week shows saving wildlife is much more complicated than killing introduced predators. Killing predators often doesn’t work, and is sometimes actually worse for native wildlife.
Australia holds many world records, including the world’s longest fence, the dingo fence. At 5,531 km, the dingo barrier fence stretches from eastern Queensland all the way to the South Australian coastline…
Bushfires are a part of life in Australia, and when they have run their course we pick up where we left off and carry on. But if you happen to be a small animal, surviving the bushfire is only the start…
Dingoes are back in the news, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott raising concerns on ABC radio last week about dingoes in drought-hit areas of Queensland and New South Wales: I’d learnt some years ago on…
Imagine if you only had one shot at passing on your genes before you died. It happens more often in the natural world than you might expect: suicidal reproduction - where one or both sexes of a species…
In “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”, Mark Twain equated keeping a cat to domestic bliss: When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there – in sunny weather…
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