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OUR WORK

Australia is a world leader in species extinction and declines, largely due to invasive species.

Our Work  |  Ending extinction | Photo by Lindy Lumsden

 

Extinct: Central hare-wallaby, kuluwarri

Of the central hare-wallaby nothing more tangible survives than one skull from an animal killed in the Great Sandy Desert in 1932. The skull was submitted by Michael Terry, a geologist-explorer who provided no information about it other than a vague locality (somewhere between Mount Farewell and Lake Mackay in the Northern Territory). The animal was probably caught by one of Terry’s Aboriginal assistants and eaten for dinner.

Aboriginal elders, consulted in the 1980s about their lost animals, remembered this one as plentiful and widespread, knowing it as ‘kalanpa’, ‘tjuntatarrka’ and by many other names. It lived on sandplains and dunes with spinifex, and could be caught at its daytime shelters in vegetation if approached with enough stealth.

It was remembered from more than 40 locations in the deserts of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and northern South Australia. The last to see it were Pintupi people in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia, who recalled it at Kiwirrkurra and Warla Warla in 1960. Kiwirrkurra has been described as the most remote community in Australia.

The extinction of the central hare-wallaby is blamed mainly on foxes and cats. Larger fires, after Indigenous people left the deserts, probably contributed to its demise by removing food plants and also shelter that hid hare-wallabies from predators – especially foxes and cats.

Michael Terry was not a serious naturalist, but his remote travels enabled him to ‘discover’ a second species of mammal near Lake Mackay that no other white person ever saw – the desert bettong. Terry brought back its skull from another expedition the following year. A jaw of this species was subsequently found in a cave on Nullarbor Plain, 1,200 kilometres away, but no other remains have survived. Its extinction is also blamed on cats and foxes.

The only physical clue to the central hare-wallaby is this skull found in the Northern Territory, but we know from Aboriginal testimony that the species also occurred in Western Australia, including in the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area, shown at top of screen. Photo: © Robert Whyte. 

Of the central hare-wallaby nothing more tangible survives than one skull.

Extinct

Australia has lost about 100 native plants and animals to extinction since colonisation, most of which were mainly due to invasive species. An estimated 27 of those extinctions occurred since the 1960s. 

Learn more about some of Australia’s lost animals:

Yallara (lesser bilby)

EXTINCT (1960s)

White-chested white-eye

EXTINCT (2000s)

Mountain mist frog

EXTINCT (1990s)

Sharp-snouted day frog

EXTINCT (1990s)

Desert bandicoot

EXTINCT (1970s)

Central hare-wallaby, kuluwarri

EXTINCT (1960s)

Southern day frog

EXTINCT (1970s)

Southern gastric brooding frog

EXTINCT (1980s)

Northern gastric brooding frog

EXTINCT (1980s)

Gravel-downs ctenotus

EXTINCT (1980s)

Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]