Conservation of Marsupials and Monotremes

Conservation of Marsupials and Monotremes

The history and current status of conservation of marsupials and monotremes is a mixture of exploitation, neglect and now for some species astounding conservation efforts. Although Australia has the world's worst record of mammal extinctions there is hope for some species where there has been considerable effort and resources allocated to their conservation but for many other species, due to lack of knowledge about their basic biology, lack of funding and the potential effects of climate change, they are likely to have poor conservation outcomes. Efforts to help conservation of marsupials and monotremes in Australia, as well as other endemic mammals, includes captive breeding and release programs, and large areas of government protected reserves and even larger areas of privately owned wildlife sanctuaries and land for conservation. Within Australia there are legislative problems, where in different government departments, a species may be classified under different legislation in different states and then the Federal Government may have a different conservation status for the same species. The negative impacts of introduced predators on many small marsupial species has resulted in extinction or severe reductions in both distributions and abundance on mainland Australia. Another problem with being small (and shy, nocturnal, living in the remoter regions of Australia) is that this calamity goes largely unnoticed. Fortunately islands have had a vital role in the conservation of marsupials in Australia, as seen by the number of species that now only survive in island populations.

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