(photo by Henricus Peters at Lone Pine Sanctuary)
On 7 September, 1936, Australia’s Tasmanian tiger – the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), slipped over the extinction line. Sixty years later, in 1996, WWF-Australia’s Threatened Species Network and the Australian Government established National Threatened Species Day to commemorate the death of the last Tasmanian tiger at Hobart Zoo.
Over under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999, and after the catastrophic bushfires in 2019-20 with nearly 3 billion animals impacted, many of these species are being pushed further towards extinction.
- List of Threatened Species – currently 565 species – is here
The list includes the iconic koala, Eastern quoll, billy, Numbat….
Over thirty million years of geographical isolation have created animals and plants unique to Australia. However, this rich biological diversity has seriously declined since European settlement. 34 Australian mammals have become extinct over the past 200 years. In the land of the kangaroo, the platypus and the koala, our mammals are the most distinctive in the world. 86% can’t be found anywhere else. But our mammal population is dwindling. And the main wildlife in danger of extinction or decline are those that fall in a critical weight range – 35 to 5,500 grams. Threatened animals in this range include , , bandicoots, , , which are particularly vulnerable to predators, including feral cats and foxes.
( sources: WWF Australia )
