Remarkable 26-year change revealed on Aussie desert property
The University of NSW's Professor Katherine Moseby is the lead author of a paper that has tracked dramatic changes over 26 years since rabbits, foxes and cats were excluded from the landscape. When it comes to the elusive spinifex hopping mouse, its population is up to 33 times higher inside than outside the fence.
During the day, you'd have to have sharp eyes to notice signs of any of the tiny mammals that live there. There are small diggings in the soil from reintroduced species like bilbies, but the desert sands and plant life appear near identical.
'If you're driving around in a car, you have to go really slowly so you don't run over all the small mammals because they're just in such high abundance compared to the outside world,' Moseby told Yahoo News.
'If you're driving around outside, you can go at normal speed.'
Related: Concern as rare birds retreat to mountains where giant moa became extinct
The study included nine native species, the spinifex hopping mouse, plains mouse, Bolam's mouse, Forrest's mouse, desert mouse, sandy inland mouse, stripe-faced dunnart, fat-tailed dunnart and Giles' planigale. The tenth species was the introduced house mouse.
During drought, the number of native mammals naturally declines, but after rain, furious breeding helps restore numbers. But the presence of feral predators outside of the fence area appears to interrupt the natural boom and bust breeding cycles, suppressing their recovery and eventually leading to localised extinctions.
The team was 'surprised' to discover that in the absence of introduced predators, mammals were expanding into new habitats where they're not traditionally found. This indicates they have retreated from an array of landscapes since the arrival of Europeans.
The spinifex hopping house had primarily been associated with sand dunes, but behind the fences they have been seen in swales and clay-based lowlands. The plains mouse moved from swales to sand dunes.
Sadly, not all of the animals that once roamed the Red Centre landscape have survived — there are several species missing from the study because they're extinct. But the recovery of 10 highlights how much the nation once looked before European settlement.
'It's incredible how that country would have been so different back then. I think people drive through the desert and think there's nothing out there, but they've just changed so much over the last 150 years,' Moseby said.
Moseby isn't just sad that Australia has changed so dramatically and that few people are aware more species like the carnivorous kowari and greater bilbies are continuing to decline in numbers. She's mostly angry.
In her decades of studying Australia's rare and endangered creatures, she hasn't seen any 'political will' to save those that have survived the initial wave of settlement, and the cocktail of threats that continue to suppress them. The country is famous for wiping out the Tasmanian tiger, very nearly killing off the koala, and it is notable for having the worst mammalian extinction record in the world.
Rare colour footage of extinct Australian animal seen again after 90 years
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Director Stephen Spielberg famously recreated a "Lost World" in his movie franchise about bringing dinosaurs back from extinction. The pre-colonial landscape in Australia hasn't yet been lost, but extinction threats are mounting, including climate change, which is heating parts of the desert to uninhabitable levels.
'We know what we need to do. It makes me really frustrated that we could be doing so much more – we can improve land condition, reduce grazing, increase our control of cats and foxes, and improve fire management. We've done the research,' Moseby said.
'We know what we need to do, but it seems like we're banging our heads against a wall, because these things just don't get taken up.'
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