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Bird flu H5N1 in Australia: protect Australian species from bird flu virus

Authors: Euan G Ritchie and Marissa L Parrott

Published in: Nature

In June, highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 was detected in Australia for the first time, in birds in a remote region in the west of the country. It is unknown whether the virus has spread to other wildlife. So far, livestock seem unaffected. But H5N1 is starting to be detected across the country, and its impact on the many endemic and increasingly imperilled species could be substantial.

Bird species of great conservation concern include the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) and regent honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia). Aquatic mammals, such as the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster), a native rodent, might be affected through transmission from water birds. Dingoes, quolls, bandicoots and other species that scavenge dead animals risk infection from carcasses. Many of the nation’s endangered mammals, including the Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), are potentially exposed.

The country must be vigilant, not alarmed. We call on government, industry and communities to increase efforts and work together to protect the continent’s species and ecosystems in the face of this unfolding threat.

Ritchie EG, Parrott ML (2026) Bird flu H5N1 in Australia: protect Australian species from bird flu virus. Nature PDF DOI

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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: Bird flu has spread to two Australian states. Here’s how it could accelerate our extinction crisis

A rare northern quoll, an animal almost extinct due to the cane toad. Jason Edwards via Getty Images

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has now been found in a second state, South Australia, after earlier being identified in Western Australia.

Authorities have confirmed three seabirds have died of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus. It is too early to know if H5N1 has spread beyond these animals to other wildlife or livestock in Australia. But it appears very much a matter of when, not if, this happens.

Globally, H5N1 has already devastated wildlife populations. In Australia, this deadly virus could greatly disrupt ecosystems and push our most threatened species even closer to extinction.

Why is H5N1 so dangerous?

The H5N1 strain of bird flu spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva and faeces, infected animals or contaminated environments. It can also be transmitted through scavenging by species that feed on infected carcasses.

Since 2021, the H5N1 strain has killed millions of the world’s wild birds, mammals and poultry. This is because it can spread faster than other HPAI strains – including between mammals – and move between continents via migratory birds.

However, it’s hard to predict how H5N1 will affect our wildlife and ecosystems. This strain of the virus is not yet established in Australia. And many of our species are endemic – meaning they’re not found anywhere outside Australia – so we don’t have the data needed to reliably predict how H5N1 may affect them.

Threatened species most at risk

For threatened species, an H5N1 outbreak could be catastrophic. And a mass mortality event could be the final straw that finishes off a species. This is especially true if a population is already in decline, is geographically restricted or gathers to breed during certain seasons.

After the initial outbreak passes, populations may rebound through breeding and immigration. However, an extreme drop in numbers can create a genetic bottleneck, leading to rapid, substantial loss of genetic diversity. This, in turn, can threaten a population’s long-term health.

Since detecting H5N1 in Australia, authorities have understandably focused on protecting Australia’s spectacular birds – including the threatened regent honeyeater and orange-bellied parrot.

What’s received less attention are our iconic but increasingly threatened mammals. This includes the egg-laying platypus, native rodents such as the rakali and numerous marsupial species. In the United States, the virus has already done widespread damage to native rodents such as squirrels and voles, and the marsupial Virginia Opossum. It may well do the same to Australia’s mammals.

Carnivorous marsupials such as endangered Tasmanian devils and quoll species are also at risk, as their hunting and scavenging may expose them to infected carcasses.

Kangaroos, wallabies, possums and bandicoots can also scavenge and eat meat, meaning they could come in contact with H5N1. Species that live near shore birds in coastal and island habitats – including endangered mainland eastern barred bandicoots and threatened quokkas – are even more at risk.

The H5N1 strain could also prove deadly to our Australian sea lion and black swan populations. Black swans appear particularly susceptible to H5N1, which may be because they evolved in the isolated island continent of Australia. Unlike other swan species, they lack certain genetic traits that might help their immune systems fight the H5N1 virus.

Long-term damage to ecosystems

Beyond individual species, H5N1 has the potential to greatly disrupt and devastate Australia’s ecosystems.

An H5N1 outbreak in predator species could see prey populations surge. If a local dingo population is wiped out by the virus, the kangaroos, wallabies, feral goats and other herbivores they prey on could rapidly increase in numbers. This could lead to overgrazing, which in turn would deprive other animals of food and shelter.

In freshwater and marine environments, an H5N1 outbreak could see many birds die in and around waterways in a short period. Nutrients from the bird carcasses could pollute waterways if not cleaned up, worsening water quality and oxygen levels and potentially causing widespread fish kills.

So, what can we do?

Compared to other countries and continents, Australia has had longer to prepare for an H5N1 outbreak.

The federal government has so far invested A$113 million to bolster our H5N1 response. This money will go towards disease surveillance, invasive species control, captive breeding programs and efforts to monitor wildlife health.

But we can also help stop the spread of H5N1 on an individual level by:

  • immediately reporting any sick or dead animals to the Emergency Animal Disease hotline on 1800 675 888 or organisations such as Wildlife Health Australia

  • not touching native wildlife

  • only feeding birds in backyards, never in the wild, and following strict hygiene measures such as cleaning water baths weekly and opting for hanging bird feeders

  • keeping dogs and cats away from wildlife, animal faeces and especially dead carcasses.

The arrival of H5N1 in Australia is not cause for panic, as this outbreak is yet to unfold. But we must be extra vigilant in how we observe and interact with wildlife and nature. The future of our most vulnerable species depends on it.

The Conversation

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Mycophagy varies at individual-, population- and site- levels in the diet of a translocated mammal across multiple safe havens

Authors: Aviya Naccarella, Camille Truong, Euan G Ritchie, Duncan R Sutherland, Amy Coetsee, and Anthony R Rendall

Published in: Biodiversity and Conservation

Abstract

Restoring ecosystem functions via conserving and translocating threatened species is an increasingly common conservation action and priority. Monitoring how a translocated species interacts with the recipient ecosystem and co-occurring species is rarely the focus of strategic management plans. Digging, mycophagous mammals play critical ecosystem roles including bioturbation and fungal spore dispersal. The fungal diets of translocated digging-mycophagous mammals have rarely been investigated across translocation sites.

We examined the endangered eastern barred bandicoot (Perameles gunnii) as a case study to compare the ecological role of a generalist mycophagous mammal that has been translocated to multiple sites inside and outside their historic range for conservation purposes in Australia. We characterized fungal assemblages in 91 bandicoot scats across five sites, two inside and three outside the species historic range, using ITS2 metabarcoding.

Despite low sample size, our data suggested fungal richness and community composition varied at individual-, population- and site-levels, aligning with the opportunistic and generalist dietary niche of bandicoots. We found no clear trends between fungal richness or community composition with vegetation attributes.

Our study highlights the need to understand how mammal-fungi interactions vary across spatial-scales and population-levels to better predict possible ecological impacts of conservation translocations and restoration attempts. We highlight the challenges of studying environmental drivers of mycophagy in modified landscapes, particularly with limited reference ecosystems. We therefore encourage integrated and explicit monitoring of key species interactions at an individual-, population- and site-level to better understand synergies between translocations for species conservation and the reinstatement of ecosystem functions.

Naccarella A, Truong C, Ritchie EG, Sutherland DR, Coetsee A, Rendall AR (2026) Mycophagy varies at individual-, population- and site-levels in the diet of a translocated mammal across multiple safe havens. Biodiversity and Conservation PDF DOI

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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: From fossicking for fossils to a champion for life on Earth: Sir David Attenborough at 100

BBC, CC BY-NC-ND

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sir David Attenborough turns 100 this week.

Very few people have the good fortune to live for a century. Fewer still achieve so much and touch so many lives.

Across his seven decade career with the BBC, Attenborough ushered in the transition from black and white to colour television. He gave the now legendary comedy troupe Monty Python their lucky break, greenlighting their Flying Circus. His keen eye and care for viewers is in part why tennis balls are yellow, not white – they’re much easier to see on screen.

But Attenborough is, of course, most famous for his nature documentaries. For decades, he has fronted the camera to educate, entertain and inspire billions of people about the complexity, wonder and majesty of the natural world, and the many threats it faces. It wasn’t a given – Attenborough was told early in his career his teeth were too big for television!

For ecologists like myself, Attenborough’s work has been a source of deep inspiration. It was instrumental in my decision to pursue a life and a career dedicated to understanding, caring and fighting for the protection of nature. For this gift, I am eternally grateful.

A career driven by curiosity

Attenborough’s connection with nature came early, forged in no small part through an insatiable fascination with fossils – including his childhood joy at discovering an ammonite in the Leicestershire countryside.

He went on to study geology and zoology at Cambridge University, graduating in 1947. He served in the navy and worked in an educational publishing house. Notably, the BBC rejected his first job application as a radio producer in 1950. But he tried again, and joined the BBC as a trainee producer in 1952.

Early in his career, Attenborough (right) interviewed Edmund Hillary. Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-ND

His career in nature documentaries began to bud almost immediately, with his Zoo Quest series beginning in 1954. But it burst into full bloom with the landmark Life on Earth series in 1979, which brought distant locations, extraordinary wildlife and evolution and ecology to TV. It instilled a sense of wonder and awe in audiences, while maintaining and respecting scientific accuracy.

The master storyteller

One reason Attenborough has had such success as a communicator is his understated, calm but authoritative demeanour. When you sit down to watch an Attenborough documentary, you feel in safe hands.

His approach isn’t the norm. In other nature documentaries, wildlife can often seem secondary, as props for the presenter.

Some of Sir David’s documentaries didn’t always go to script.

In series such as The Living Planet, The Trials of Life, The Blue Planet, The Planet Earth, and scores of others, Attenborough took us across the globe, revealing nature’s beauty, oddities and extraordinary complexity, as well as its macabre and brutal aspects. The habitats home to the world’s species are brought to life in extraordinary detail. We watch with laughter, trepidation, sadness, anger, excitement and awe, ebbing and flowing as nature’s stories unfold.

Who can forget the first time they saw and heard the extraordinary vocal repertoire and mimicry of a lyrebird, or a curious mountain gorilla’s desire to connect with a fellow great ape? The epic battle for survival between a hatchling iguana and hungry hordes of racer snakes? Or the breathtaking explosion of colour and complexity of a coral reef? Each of these was captured by master cinematographers and the story told to us by Attenborough.

A truly epic chase and battle for survival between iguanas and snakes.

Over his long career, Attenborough has become an icon. He was voted the UK’s best TV presenter of all time. But his prodigious output has come at a personal cost too. One of his regrets is how much time he has spent away from his family.

He is also not off limits to criticism. For a long time, Attenborough focused on the glory of nature, largely omitting the damage humans do through overfishing, deforestation, pollution, spreading exotic species, and other threats. He has also shied away from assigning blame to those most responsible for the harms inflicted on nature.

In 2018, he said too much focus on why so much wildlife is threatened was a “turn-off” for some viewers. Ecologists and conservation scientists can sympathise. We know bombarding people with doom and gloom invites apathy and despair, not a desire to act. It’s a hard line to walk between harsh realities and hope.

To his credit, Attenborough has belatedly focused on these issues in recent years. Footage of plastic pollution in Blue Planet II and the ravages of industrial fishing in Ocean have brought a sharp focus on these issues.

In 2020, he released A Life On Our Planet, which he describes as a “witness statement” to the startling losses of biodiversity he has seen over his lifetime. Rather than just spell out the problems, Attenborough laid out how to solve them – and the role we can all play in fixing the two biggest and deeply interwoven problems nature faces: climate change and biodiversity declines and extinctions.

While Attenborough’s earlier work largely avoided these difficult conversations, they succeeded in bringing nature’s wonder to millions of people. This shouldn’t be overlooked. At a time when more and more of us are cut off from nature, Attenborough’s documentaries forged a new connection. For people to care about losing nature, they first have to know and love it.

Conservation relies on stories

Scientific research rarely leads to the behavioural changes we might hope for. Accumulating facts and evidence is vital. But it’s not enough. What humans respond to is stories.

Alongside other globally renowned voices such as the late, great Jane Goodall, Attenborough’s work telling the stories of nature has shaped public opinion. In turn, it has galvanised conservation efforts such as the push to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

As he celebrates his centenary, it’s encouraging to see a new generation and diversity of voices in the media and science communication, advocacy, and scientific community. They speak and share their messages with great clarity, confidence, and passion.

Attenborough is just one person. He can’t replace the vital role of scientists, community leaders, conservationists and policymakers in conserving nature. But no one will ever replace David’s distinctive voice. As he has said:

it seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living

Hear, hear. Happy birthday for May 8th, David Attenborough.

The Conversation
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Human-induced trait shifts reshape predator–prey interactions

Authors: Eamonn IF Wooster, Chris J Jolly, Dale G Nimmo, Ben J Ashton, Mauricio Cantor, Martin J Whiting, R Keller Kopf, Simone Des Roches, Alexandra JR Carthey, Lauren A Stanton, Euan G Ritchie, Michael G Bertram, and Kaitlyn M Gaynor

Published in: Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Abstract

For millions of years, predators and their prey have been locked in an evolutionary arms race: adaptive changes in one favor compensatory adaptations in the other. Humans have also been powerful agents of selection, reshaping the distribution of traits in animal populations. These human-induced trait shifts can disrupt predator–prey interactions, with cascading effects on ecological communities and ecosystems.

We synthesize emerging evidence demonstrating that anthropogenic pressures alter physical, behavioral, and social traits relevant to predator–prey dynamics. We provide a framework for predicting the outcomes of trait shifts and a roadmap for advancing this emerging field of research.

Incorporating human-induced trait changes into interaction models is essential for forecasting and conserving ecological function in a rapidly changing world.

Wooster EIF, Jolly CJ, Nimmo DG, Ashton BJ, Cantor M, Whiting MJ, Kopf RK, Des Roches S, Carthey AJR, Stanton LA, Ritchie EG, Bertram MG, Gaynor KM (2026) Human-induced trait shifts reshape predator–prey interactions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution PDF DOI

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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: When feral cats are away, potoroos and bandicoots are more likely to play


Fidel Fernando/Unsplash

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University; Amy Coetsee, Threatened Species Biologist, The University of Melbourne; Anthony Rendall, Lecturer in Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, and Duncan Sutherland, Deputy Director of Research, Phillip Island Nature Parks; Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

All animals need to eat to survive, grow and reproduce. To do so, they also need to avoid being eaten. This is a big challenge for many of Australia’s native mammals, because when they search for food, they must also escape the attention of introduced predators, namely, feral cats and red foxes.

Tragically, many have been unable to overcome this test of survival, becoming one of the 40 native mammal species driven to extinction since European colonisation.

But what happens if we reduce the numbers of introduced predators? Do our surviving native species think there is less risk of being the next meal for a cat or fox? How do they respond? And how might we tell? With peanut butter balls, of course!

A deadly game of hide and seek


Long-nosed potoroos are vulnerable to predation by non-native feral cats and red foxes.
Leo Berzins/flickr, CC BY-ND

Natural environments contain predators and prey engaged in a deadly game of hide and seek, and – from the prey’s perspective – a landscape of fear. The extent to which the two groups are aware of each other and able to respond (hunting vs hiding and escape) varies across time and space. Prey might perceive some areas as a riskier proposition, such as more open habitats or times when predators are most active. They therefore reduce their activity to minimise the likelihood of being eaten.

But avoiding being eaten comes at an energetic cost. It may mean preferred areas or times to feed are reduced, which in turn limits rates of growth, reproduction and survival of prey species. Prey animals are constantly weighing up this tradeoff of risk vs reward as they go about their lives.

Tasty treats can assess risk appetite

We can’t know for sure how much animals fear being eaten, but we can assess it indirectly, through their willingness to eat. In our recently published study, we measured how much food animals don’t eat as a indicator of their fear of being eaten. The more food they give up, the greater the risk of predation those animals are assumed to perceive. These experiments are made easier by the fact many mammals are mad about gobbling up peanut butter.

French Island has long been fox free, but had thousands of feral cats. In 2010, authorities began a feral cat eradication, which made it a perfect place for our research.


Feral cat activity per month at one site on French Island, south-eastern Australia, across a 2-year period during a cat eradication program. The red arrow indicates when the cat eradication program began and the blue arrows indicate when we undertook our GUD experiments.
CC BY-NC-ND

Importantly, we were able to start our experiment prior to an eradication program of feral cats, which began in 2010 on French Island, Victoria. This means we were able to measure changes in long-nosed potoroos and eastern barred bandicoots habitat use and foraging as cat numbers and activity fell.

So, on fox-free French Island, we placed balls of peanut butter, rolled oats and golden syrup into trays with soil and dug them into the ground, ensuring they were below the soil surface. We did this in more open grassland areas (likely riskier habitat, with less cover and protection from feral cats) and more densely vegetated areas (less risky habitat, due to increased cover).

We used camera traps to measure how often potoroos and bandicoots visited these feeding trays to dig up the tasty treats, and how much of the peanut butter balls they left behind in different habitats and at different periods throughout the ongoing feral cat eradication program.

When feral cats are away, native animals play (more)

A deadly game of feral cat and long-nosed potoroo, as revealed by our camera trap. We can confirm that this potoroo survived, this time. Te Ao Marama Eketone (Deakin University), CC BY-NC-ND

As the number of feral cats on French Island was reduced, potoroos and bandicoots used both open and closed habitat types more frequently, and they increased their activity, giving up less food over time. This suggests bandicoots and potoroos do recognise feral cats as a threat, and are able to fairly rapidly change their habitat use and foraging accordingly.

Aside from the obvious benefits of fewer feral cats killing and eating potoroos and bandicoots on French Island, our study suggests there may be substantial benefits for native wildlife — namely increased access to habitats and foraging opportunities — even before the ultimate longer-term goal of cat eradication can be achieved.

Our study’s results are encouraging. Outside the safe havens of invasive predator-free islands and fenced sanctuaries, feral cats are notoriously hard to eradicate from large areas, and there is a constant threat of their return.

We need to do all that we can to give Australia’s native mammals, including eastern barred bandicoots, a helping hand. Zoos Victoria, CC BY-NC-ND

To change this, new and more effective ways to control and eradicate feral cats are needed. But until then, reducing and keeping feral cat numbers lower, while also carefully managing habitats to benefit wildlife, can still give native animals the helping hand they need to survive.

We would like to acknowledge that this work was led by former Deakin University Honours student, Te Ao Marama Eketone, and it occurred on the unceded Country of the Bunurong/Boonwurrung peoples.

The Conversation
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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: Yes, feral cats and foxes really have driven many Australian mammals to extinction

Lea Scannan/Getty

John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University; Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University; Katherine Moseby, Professor of Conservation Biology, UNSW, and Sarah Legge, Professor of Wildlife Conservation, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Millions of years of isolation have shaped Australia’s extraordinary mammal fauna into species unlike anywhere else in the world, from platypus to koalas and wombats.

Tragically, Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions. About 40 species have gone extinct in the 238 years since European colonisation began, and nearly 80 species are now imperilled. It’s essential we understand what factors caused these extinctions and ongoing decline.

Over many years, scientists have gathered compelling evidence demonstrating predation by introduced cats and foxes has been a key driver. Australian mammals have had millennia living alongside other predators such as wedge-tailed eagles and dingoes. But foxes and cats are extraordinarily capable and ecologically flexible hunters, quite unlike anything Australia’s mammals had confronted before.

Recently, some researchers have questioned whether these introduced predators really are responsible. In our new research, we lay out the clear lines of evidence implicating foxes and cats. For instance, extinct species tend to be small-to-medium mammals, the preferred prey size for these predators. When mammals are returned to fenced, fox- and cat-free areas, their populations often flourish.

The main lines of evidence implicating introduced predators in Australian native mammal declines and extinctions. Author provided, CC BY-NC-ND

Controversy in conservation

Last year, researchers questioned whether there was enough evidence to say feral cats and foxes had contributed to Australian mammal extinctions – and, by implication, their role in the ongoing decline of other threatened mammal species.

Their research drew on three premises relating to extinct and surviving mammals. If cats and foxes caused these extinctions, they argued that these should follow:

  1. The last recorded sighting of a now extinct mammal from an area must come after the arrival of one or both of these predator species

  2. Lethal management programs aimed at reducing fox and cat numbers should result in an increase in native mammal numbers in an area

  3. Where cats and foxes are abundant, there should be fewer native mammals.

After testing these three ideas, the authors conclude the hypothesis foxes and cats cause extinctions “has come to be accepted with little evidence.”

The research caused a major stir among the conservation community, as it took aim at longstanding accumulated knowledge and questioned whether the evidence base was strong enough to justify efforts to control feral cats and foxes.

As experts with many decades experience working to protect threatened Australian mammals and other wildlife, we had a duty to evaluate their evidence.

Claim and counterclaim is essential to test, shape and hone science, and to provide a robust foundation for conservation management. It may seem like an academic argument, but it has clear real-world implications.

The survival and recovery of much of Australia’s native mammal fauna depends on controlling cats and foxes. Many recent success stories in bringing native animals back from the brink are due to removing foxes and cats.

If this objective is abandoned because of arguments feral cats and foxes are simply innocent bystanders, we risk rapidly losing many of these imperilled species.

An introduced eastern barred bandicoot population has thrived after foxes were eradicated on Phillip Island. Neil Bowman/Getty

What did we do?

A provocative claim in last year’s research was that some Australian mammal species may have gone extinct before foxes and cats ever got to the area. If this was true, cats and foxes couldn’t be held responsible.

Cats came with the First Fleet in 1788, augmented with many subsequent introductions. By the 1890s, feral populations had spread across the entire continent. Foxes came later, first introduced to southeastern Australia in the 1830s. They, too, spread out across most of the continent over decades.

We re-ran analysis of the historic data and found the last record of a now-extinct native mammal in an area was always dated after the arrival of cats. The picture is less clear for foxes, though this is understandable given the earlier arrival of cats would already have caused losses.

Further, the actual date of extinction may occur long after the last documented record, especially in remote, sparsely populated areas of Australia.

First Nations peoples and Europeans have witnessed and recorded many cases where a native mammal species disappeared from an area soon after one or both non-native predators arrived.

Fate provides further evidence. Many mammals were wiped out from their entire mainland ranges but survived on islands that cats and foxes never colonised. For instance, all mainland populations of the greater stick-nest rat have disappeared. But the species survives because it also had an island population. By contrast, the lesser stick-nest rat had no island population. It is now extinct.

After cats arrived in an area, historic data shows regional losses of mammals went up sharply, with the exception of two arbitrarily dated bones. Author provided, CC BY-NC-ND

Does fox and cat control work?

The authors argue fox and cat control doesn’t result in increases of threatened mammals. But this conclusion may stem from misreading data from feral cat and fox control programs. Not all control programs work to reduce cat numbers over long periods or even at all.

Instead, we can get far clearer evidence from what happens in safe havens – islands or fenced areas where foxes and cats are completely excluded. Threatened mammal species almost always increase in these areas and almost always decline at comparable sites where foxes and cats are not excluded.

Eastern barred bandicoots now roam Victoria’s fox-free Phillip Island, while hare-wallaby numbers are rebounding on Western Australia’s Dirk Hartog Island following the eradication of feral cats.

The assumption that native mammals should typically be less abundant when and where cats and foxes are more common doesn’t always hold. After periods of good rainfall in inland Australia, populations of native mammals and feral predators all increase. During droughts, predator and prey numbers both fall.


This trail camera image captures a feral cat with two native hopping mice in its mouth.
Katherine Moseby, CC BY-NC-ND

Difficult truths

The original analysis and our new research have a broader context. Some have argued the impact of introduced species has been overstated, and that introduced species should be seen as a legitimate part of Australia’s ecosystems. Scientific evidence and conservation outcomes do not support this.

Australia supports about 8% of the world’s biodiversity as one of just 17 megadiverse nations. Protecting our unique species is not easy. But the task for conservationists and policymakers will be even harder if feral cats and foxes are given a free pass to keep killing.

Lethal control is, unfortunately, necessary to protect many species near the brink of no return. It has to be done as humanely as possible and justified publicly. Stepping back would mean more and more extinctions.

We would like to acknowledge our research coauthors.

The Conversation
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Investigating the causes of an extinction catastrophe: controlling introduced predators remains essential for conserving Australia’s mammals

Authors: John CZ Woinarski, Sarah M Legge, Katherine Moseby, Andrew A Burbidge, Alexandra JR Carthey, Chris R Dickman, Tim S Doherty, Jason Ferris, Diana O Fisher, Matthijs Hollanders, Bronwyn A Hradsky, Chris N Johnson, Chris J Jolly, John Kanowski, Mike Letnic, Rachel T Mason, Hugh McGregor, Brett P Murphy, Reece Pedler, John L Read, Anthony R Rendall, Alyson Stobo-Wilson, Jonathan Webb, Bruce L Webber, Rebecca West, and Euan G Ritchie

Published in: BioScience

Abstract

At least 40 Australian mammal species have been driven to extinction since European colonization in 1788. For conservation management to be effective, it is vital that the reasons for historical extinctions and ongoing declines are understood and remedied.

A recent article (Wallach and Lundgren 2025) concluded that there was no compelling evidence that two introduced predators (domestic cats and red foxes) were primary causes of these mammal losses. We refute that article, finding substantial flaws in its premises, analyses, data, interpretations, and conclusions.

Using multiple lines of evidence, we show that these two predators are strongly implicated in most Australian mammal extinctions and in the ongoing imperilment of numerous extant species. The devastating impact of cats and foxes on Australia’s mammals has been widely recognized by conservation managers who have, in response, implemented national programs to control these predators, producing widely recognized benefits for one of the world’s most remarkable native mammal faunas.

Woinarski JCZ, Legge SM, Moseby K, Burbidge AA, Carthey AJR, Dickman CR, Doherty TS, Ferris J, Fisher DO, Hollanders M, Hradsky BA, Johnson CN, Jolly CJ, Kanowski J, Letnic M, Mason RT, McGregor H, Murphy BP, Pedler R, Read JL, Rendall AR, Stobo-Wilson A, Webb J, Webber BL, West R, Ritchie EG (2026) Investigating the causes of an extinction catastrophe: controlling introduced predators remains essential for conserving Australia’s mammals, BioScience PDF DOI

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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: In the most cleared state in Australia, Victoria’s native wildlife needs our help after fires

 joey found by firefighters near the Harcourt fire in Victoria. Glenlyon Rural Fire Brigade/Facebook

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Victoria has just suffered some of its worst bushfires since the Black Summer fires of 2019–20. Over 400,000 hectares are estimated to have burnt so far, an area more than five times larger than Singapore.

Regional communities have been deeply affected. They need support to recover and rebuild their homes, towns and lives. And what about the state’s unique plants, animals and ecosystems?

Both large and small fires erupted in Victoria, and were extraordinarily widespread across diverse environments. They burned in the Wimmera–Mallee region in the northwest, the Otways in the southwest, central Victoria, northeastern Victoria and eastern Victoria, including the alpine region. This means a correspondingly diverse range of native plants and animals has been affected.

Compounding this, Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia. This makes it more difficult for animals to find suitable habitat outside of burnt areas in a fragmented landscape as they recover.

A night image of fires lighting up the sky above Lake Eildon during the Victorian bushfires. Graeme Thomas/Facebook

How will these fires affect nature?

Fires have short and long-term affects on wildlife. While a high proportion of animals can survive fires, the total numbers of insects, birds, frogs, reptiles, mammals and others that have died during the fires or afterwards, will still be large. This is due to severe burns, smoke, radiant heat or other injuries as they try to escape. Many animals get caught on fences as they move across landscapes seeking refuge.

We might think animals that can fly, such as many insects, birds and bats, should be able to easily escape. But smoke and extreme heat makes it difficult to breathe and regulate their body temperature, and can disorient wildlife. Temperatures soared well above 40°C during the fires. Along with intense winds, this took a heavy toll on some animals. Tragically, thousands of flying foxes died.

Many animals will have survived fires by finding refuge in protected waterways, caves, rock and boulder piles, or by going underground, including into wombat burrows. Echidnas dig into the ground and go to sleep, a clever tactic to conserve energy and reduce stress on the body.

After fires, animals face additional challenges. Feral cats and foxes are known to rapidly take advantage of burnt areas. Hunting and capturing their prey in more open habitat is easier. Potoroos, bandicoots, lizards and many others that survive initially may be hunted in the hours, days and weeks after a fire.

The long-term effects

The impact of fire can last for decades, or even longer. Many Australian wildlife species depend on logs and hollows in trees for shelter and to raise young. Fire can both create and destroy hollows.

Importantly, Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia. Hence, hollows are already short in supply and patchily distributed. For some tree species, they can take more than 100 years to form. Their loss puts pressure on threatened species including greater gliders, barking owls and spotted-tailed quolls.

Aquatic life is not immune to the effects of fire either. Rains that occur in burnt landscapes can wash ash, debris and toxins into waterways. This smothers underwater habitats and reduces oxygen and water quality for native fish, crayfish and amphibians. In some cases it leads to mass mortality, including fish kills.

How to respond?

Once bushfires are contained and it is safe to enter, government agencies, scientists and wildlife carers will get a clearer picture of fire severity and native wildlife that need help. They will undertake population surveys and develop a management plan. This may include culling invasive herbivores such as deer, laying poison baits to control feral cats and foxes and installing artificial refuges for native animals.

Agencies should take a whole-of-ecosystem view to ensure well intended actions don’t have unexpected consequences. While 1080 poison may be needed in some areas to help control non-native predators, it also poses a risk to dingoes, a threatened species in Victoria.

This includes the Wilkerr (dingo) population in the Big Desert-Wyperfeld region in northwest Victoria, estimated to number fewer than 100 adults. Approximately 60,000 hectares of Wilkerr habitat has burned. The fires may push Wilkerr into agricultural land seeking cover and water, increasing contact and conflict with livestock graziers. This situation needs to be thoughtfully managed to protect graziers, livestock and Wilkerr.

What should I do?

We can help in a range of ways. These include:

  • putting out water dishes for animals with sticks or stones in them so small animals don’t drown
  • donating to charities and organisations that take care of injured wildlife
  • creating wildlife-friendly gardens that displaced animals may use.

Members of the public should not attempt to feed wildlife, and leave this to experts. Likewise, approaching injured animals is not advised, including kangaroos and snakes. Stressed animals can behave erratically and aggressively, and should only be taken care of by experienced wildlife experts.

Feeding wildlife after fire should be done by experts, such as occurred for rock wallabies following the Gariwerd–Grampians fires.

Governments must change course

As a wildlife ecologist and conservation expert, these fires bring an unwelcome but familiar mixture of deep sadness and intense frustration. As the climate gets hotter, such events will only become more likely and more severe.

Governments must substantially increase efforts to curb climate change, including a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Likewise, we need far stronger environmental laws, and greater government investment to protect and recover the wildlife and places Australians love.

Fire has shaped Australia’s environments, and many species are adapted to survive and even benefit from fire. But the increasing regularity of severe fires will push some wildlife and ecosystems into oblivion. As with people and communities, we have a duty to provide Australia’s native plants, animals and other life with a safe and secure future.

The Conversation
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Publications

Optimising fire and predator management for conservation

Authors: William L Geary, Ayesha IT Tulloch, Tim S Doherty, Dale G Nimmo, Euan G Ritchie, Jeffrey O Hanson, Marika A Maxwell, and Adrian F Wayne

Published in: Journal of Applied Ecology

Abstract

Interactions between threatening processes compound and accelerate biodiversity decline. Conservation managers need to understand how co-occurring threats interact and account for such interactions when prioritising when, where and how to manage landscapes to recover declining species.

Using the Upper Warren region in south-western Australia as a case study, we develop a framework for identifying optimal fire age classes while also considering predation by introduced red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) — two co-occurring processes affecting the recovery of a threatened faunal community (woylie Bettongia penicillata, chuditch Dasyurus geoffroii, quenda Isoodon fusciventor, and numbat Myrmecobius fasciatus). We fitted a multi-species relative abundance model to a dataset from 548 camera trap sites and tested for associations between each species’ relative abundance, fox baiting intensity, and time since fire. We then used linear programming optimisation to identify the optimal distribution of time since fire values across the study region that maximises the abundance of four focal species under alternative fox baiting intensity and fire severity scenarios.

Fire and baiting both influenced the relative abundance of the four species, with baiting intensity having a positive association with woylie relative abundance. The optimal distribution of time since fire values across the study region varied with the intensity of fox baiting. The importance of older fire ages increased in some locations when fox baiting intensity was high, but these results were highly uncertain and varied spatially. High fox baiting intensities combined with optimal fire age distributions also led to a higher relative abundance of three focal species overall, namely woylie, quenda, and numbat.

Synthesis and applications. Our study demonstrates an end-to-end framework for using field data to derive optimal fire regimes for biodiversity in a way that explicitly acknowledges uncertainty and remains useful for conservation decisions. Approaches such as these are essential for managing ecosystems with compounding threats to biodiversity.

Geary WL, Tulloch AIT, Doherty TS, Nimmo DG, Ritchie EG, Hanson JO, Maxwell MA, Wayne AF (2026) Optimising fire and predator management for conservation. Journal of Applied Ecology PDF DOI

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Publications

The foraging ecology of a threatened ecosystem engineer translocated to island safe havens

Authors: Ella Loeffler, Anthony R Rendall, Nick Porch, Duncan R Sutherland, Amy L Coetsee, and Euan G Ritchie

Published in: Austral Ecology

Abstract

Describing and quantifying the foraging ecology of wildlife is important for fundamental ecological theory and understanding the roles species play within ecosystems. Further, such information can be applied to help guide conservation actions, such as predictions of ecological outcomes resulting from threatened species translocations aimed at reestablishing self-sustaining populations and restoring functions to ecosystems.

Our study investigated the diet of two populations of eastern barred bandicoots (Perameles gunnii, mainland populations) introduced to fox-free islands (Churchill Island and Phillip Island, southeastern Australia) outside of the species’ historical range. Microscopic analysis of faeces revealed that bandicoots exhibit an omnivorous diet, consuming a broad range of invertebrate, plant and fungal material, similar to previous studies of their diet within their natural range. Commonly identified invertebrate taxa included earthworms, beetle adults and larvae, ants, cockroaches, spiders and caterpillars. Notably, crabs were also found in bandicoot diet, indicating the species’ ability to adapt to and use coastal (novel) environments.

Seasonality was the main factor associated with changes in bandicoot diet at Churchill Island, suggesting that the species is a facultative generalist omnivore that shifts feeding seasonally, likely in relation to variation in food availability. Diet also shifted in response to bandicoot density, likely related to the expansion of the bandicoot population into more diverse habitats across the island. The inherent flexibility of eastern barred bandicoot diet means they are well-suited for additional conservation translocations, although prior assessments of recipient ecosystems are needed.

Loeffler E, Rendall AR, Porch N, Sutherland DR, Coetsee AL, Ritchie EG (2026) The foraging ecology of a threatened ecosystem engineer translocated to island safe havens. Austral Ecology PDF DOI

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Publications

Experimental evidence of changing habitat use and activity of native prey during invasive mesopredator population control

Authors: Te Ao Marama Eketone, Anthony R Rendall, Amy Coetsee, Duncan R Sutherland, and Euan G Ritchie

Published in: Animal Conservation

Abstract

Predators can alter the habitat use and temporal activity patterns of prey, impacting their vital rates. Such dynamics between species are critical to understand in relation to invasive predators, which are among the greatest threats to biodiversity. In response to invasive predator impacts, predator-free “safe havens” are increasingly being used to prevent the loss of threatened wildlife species. Few studies have experimentally tested how prey behavior may change in relation to invasive predator population control programs and habitat variation.

We investigated changes in the foraging behavior and activity of two ground-dwelling, threatened marsupial species during a feral cat eradication program and in relation to more open versus more closed vegetation. We used giving-up density stations and motion-triggered cameras to record foraging behavior and the perceived risk of prey before and during a feral cat eradication program, and across a gradient of low to high vegetation density on French Island, south-eastern Australia.

After feral cat population reduction, each species used both open and closed vegetation more frequently, with foraging behavior (lower giving-up densities) and activity increasing over time. Our results suggest bandicoots and potoroos recognize feral cats as a threat, and that they modify their spatial and temporal activity accordingly.

Eketone TAM, Rendall AR, Coetsee A, Sutherland DR, Ritchie EG (2026) Experimental evidence of changing habitat use and activity of native prey during invasive mesopredator population control. Animal Conservation PDF DOI

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The Conversation

The Conversation: Best books of 2025: our experts share their picks

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The end of the year means holiday celebrations, summer breaks … and for us, one important thing: best books lists. We asked 35 expert readers for their favourite picks, ranging from novelists to anthropologists, scientists to criminologists – and experts in politics, publishing and philosophy. The only rule? The book had to be published this year.

And the Books & Ideas team are sharing our own best books of 2025.

Books & Ideas editor Suzy Freeman-Greene’s best book is Arundhati Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me (Penguin Random House). Don’t be put off by the cheesy title – Roy re-enchants the genre, eyeing her dysfunctional parents and her political struggles with wit and poetic verve. (Honourable mention: Hasib Hourani’s charged book-length poem, Rock Flight).

Senior deputy editor Jo Case’s standout was The Transformations (Picador), Andrew Pippos’ big-hearted ode to the dying days of print journalism. It follows a wary, wounded, deeply kind subeditor as newspapers shrink and his solitary world widens to let people in – inviting rich complications. (Honourable mention: Olivia De Zilva’s blazingly original, smart-funny-sad debut autofiction, Plastic Budgie.)

And deputy editor James Ley’s top pick was Hayek’s Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right by Quinn Slobodian (Allen Lane). (Honourable mention: Francesca Wade’s biography Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife.)

Fiona Wright

Josephine Rowe’s Little World (Black Inc.) is a surprising, deft and quietly moving book: a novella about outsiders and exiles, told in triptych. It opens with the startling image of the incorruptible body of a child-saint arriving – in a horse float – at a remote desert property, before stretching out across time and space. Its characters are all relics of a kind, all struggling with contrition and connection. It is a technically brilliant, elegant work – one that has stayed with me all year.

Fiona Wright was the 2024-2025 Judy Harris Writer in Residence, Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney.

Sandra Phillips

So much spoke to me in Angie Faye Martin’s debut crime novel, Melaleuca (Harper Collins). Martin is of Kooma, Kamilaroi, and European heritage. A writer and editor, she delivers a clever insider understanding of racialised Australia, with a speciality in small-town cop culture. Melaleuca has staunch and loving Blakfella characters – and not one, but two crimes to solve. Sad at times, funny at others, it is intricate and well-paced in plot and subplot. Right up until the very end, it’s a thrilling read.

Sandra Phillips is associate dean, Indigenous and professor of publishing and communications, University of Melbourne.

Andrew Pippos

The title of Dominic Amerena’s debut, I Want Everything (Summit Books), neatly specifies the farcical ambitions that poison its characters. The interplay between the book’s two narrative strands is an impressive achievement: the Brenda Shale chapters carry a sober emotional weight, while the contemporary framing is playful, biting and fast-paced. This is a comic novel with serious things to say about art and gender.

Andrew Pippos is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Technology Sydney.

Vijay Mishra

Heart Lamp (Scribe) by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, was originally written in Kannada, a “minoritarian” language spoken by over 65 million people in India. This collection of 12 stories offers an extraordinary tapestry, principally of the quotidian lives of anxiety-driven Indian Muslim women under the unwavering sign of patriarchy. Written in near-minimalist prose, the collection offers delicate accounts of cultural practices, from the rituals of worship, marriage, childbirth and circumcision, to the desire for a funeral shroud dipped in the holy Zamzam waters of Mecca. Deepa Bhasthi’s uplifting and aesthetically accomplished translation transforms Banu Mushtaq’s stories (phenomenal as they are in their source language) into a great work of art.

Vijay Mishra is emeritus professor of English and comparative literature, Murdoch University.

Emma Shortis

Less than a year into the second Trump administration, I am haunted by a line written by Canadian songwriter Rufus Wainwright: “I’m so tired of you, America.” We are all of us, I think, tired. Writing a book on the history of the US that cuts through the tiredness is always a Herculean task; this year, of all years, it should have been impossible. Somehow, with The Shortest History of the United States of America (Black Inc.), Don Watson has done it.

Emma Shortis is adjunct senior fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University.

Intifar Chowdhury

After watching the Netflix adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club, I was hooked by its fresh, witty take on ageing, friendship and crime. So, when Richard Osman’s latest book in the series dropped, I couldn’t resist diving back into the world of Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim. The Impossible Fortune is everything from quirky clever to utterly heartwarming. A wedding guest with a dangerous secret vanishes, pulling the club back into a whirlwind of mystery and unexpected twists. Osman delivers a page-turning thriller that balances suspense with humour and tenderness. It’s a story about loyalty, resilience and the thrill of chasing answers – even when life insists on slowing you down.

Intifar Chowdhury is lecturer in government, Flinders University.

Carol Lefevre

I read Joan Didion’s posthumous Notes to John (Fourth Estate) with enormous guilt for the invasion of privacy. But guilt aside, Notes reveals a new side of Didion. It documents a woman struggling amid the complex fallout of adoption, a mother who lives in daily terror that her adopted daughter will be lost. It explains the fear of loss that haunts Didion’s fiction, and shows the raw material she worked from in the more poetic Blue Nights. Didion may not have given her blessing to this book, which is an account of her sessions with a psychiatrist, but those who ushered Notes into the world did a good thing for those of us who adore her. It may be a source of solace, too, for many engaged in ongoing struggles with adoption.

Carol Lefevre is visiting research fellow, English and creative writing, University of Adelaide.

Peter Mares

Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling (Columbia Global Reports) is a vivid case study of the harms wrought by online sports betting in the United States after the Supreme Court greenlit the industry in 2018. A landmark parliamentary report chaired by the late Peta Murphy MP documented similar damage in Australia. Yet two years on, the government has not acted on its bipartisan recommendations. Sometimes it helps to understand your own mess by studying someone else’s, so this is the book Australian politicians should read over summer.

Peter Mares is adjunct senior research fellow, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University.

Elizabeth Finkel

Ian McEwan is my go-to writer for portraiture. In What We Can Know (Jonathan Cape), his canvas widens to civilisations – our current “deranged” one, hurtling eyes wide shut to imminent ecological collapse and AI-triggered nuclear wars – and the archipelago civilisation that follows, where scholars rely on electronic texts, rife with disinformation, to know (and ache for) the prelapsarian world. The title holds the key to the book: a meditation on the inherent murkiness of human knowledge, made infinitely worse by 21st-century tech.

Elizabeth Finkel is adjunct senior research fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University.

Jumana Bayeh

Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Text Publishing) is confronting to read for a range of reasons. Some will see themselves in the heartache and confusion Akkad outlines. Others – perhaps most – will see themselves uncomfortably reflected in the complacency that caused Akkad his heartache. Providing insights into what it means to confront the genocide as an Arab in the West, this book outlines how liberal responses to the decimation of Gaza and its inhabitants are experienced by people like Akkad as betrayal, harmful silence and pain.

Jumana Bayeh is associate professor, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University.

John Quiggin

“Enshittification” is the process by which once-useful parts of the internet, like Google, are degraded by the corporations that control them. It was Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2024. Cory Doctorow, who coined the term, has now written the definitive book on this disease, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It (Verso), describing its pathology, epidemiology and possible cures.

John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland.

Joëlle Gergis

Few writers are skilful enough to articulate the complexity of the turbulent times we are living through. Even fewer provide genuine hope. There’s barely a page of Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There (Granta) that I haven’t flagged to revisit her wisdom and insight. Solnit’s nuanced view of social change reminds us that every chapter in human history has challenged our moral integrity. These lyrical essays are inspiration for world-weary readers who know that giving up isn’t an option.

Joëlle Gergis is honorary associate professor of climate science at the University of Melbourne.

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth

My favourite book published this year was Evelyn Araluen’s The Rot (UQP). I’m tempted to call the book a fever dream, yet there is also something icily cold in the vision of these poems. The “rot” appears in the world as cascading injustice, from the bloodied rubble of Gaza to the escalating misery of the housing crisis. But the rot is also intimate and interior. Once we would have called it our soul.

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth is a professor and chair of Australian literature at the University of Western Australia.

Alice Grundy

Salvage (Picador) by Jennifer Mills is the perfect book to read on your summer holidays. It’s pacey and keeps you turning the pages, while you reflect on how you’re cooking on a heating planet. Salvage is a new genre for Mills, but it has the visceral descriptions readers will remember from her earlier novels, Dyschronia and The Airways, and characters you would love to road-trip with.

Alice Grundy is visiting fellow, School of Literature, Language and Linguistics, Australian National University.

Nick Haslam

“We are not getting sicker,” writes Suzanne O’Sullivan, author of The Age of Diagnosis (Hodder) – “we are attributing more to sickness.” A neurologist working at the clinical coalface, the author of this powerful book argues that over-diagnosis is rampant. Ranging from autism to ADHD to cancer screening, she finds our tendency to pathologise is doing more harm than good. Bracing without being polemical, The Age of Diagnosis pushes back against our diagnostic culture, offering practical remedies for health professionals and the wider public.

Nick Haslam is professor of psychology, University of Melbourne.

John Long

Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp (Viking) is both a sobering and utterly engaging account of the historical rise and fall of states. “Goliath States” succeed through violence or threatening it. Inequality leads to autocracy, which fuels Goliath States. Today, 71% of the population lives under autocracy, with more countries heading towards it. The conclusion is that the world will succumb to nuclear war or environmental collapse, unless more states become democratically governed and collaborate to avoid the apocalypse.

John Long is strategic professor in palaeontology, Flinders University.

Melanie Saward

Weaving Us Together (Hachette) is the Blak, queer coming-of-age story I wish I’d had as a teenager. The story follows shy Aboriginal teen, Jean O’Reilly, as they adjust to life in a small, northern New South Wales town. Lay Maloney’s beautifully written novel (which won the 2022 blak&write! fellowship), somehow manages to be a gentle, safe place to land for young people exploring gender, sexuality and identity, while not shying away from inter-generational trauma, stolen children, police violence and racism. A must-read for schools, educators and young people.

Melanie Saward is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Queensland.

Jindan Ni

Without any hesitation, my favourite book for 2025 is Ocean Vuong’s second novel, The Emperor of Gladness (Jonathan Cape). In the fictional US town of “East Gladness”, no one is “glad”. Along with the protagonist Hai, a college drop-out whose attempted suicide is interrupted by an elderly lady with dementia, Vuong compels readers to witness the vulnerable lives of many disadvantaged people. Yet despite their deep precarity, solace and love are generously provided beyond family ties. A heart-wrenching story with an incredible healing power.

Jindan Ni is senior lecturer, global and language studies, RMIT University.

John Woinarski

My best book this year was Nicolas Rothwell and Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson’s Yilkari: A Desert Suite (Text Publishing). There is mystery and meaning in the Australian landscape. Most of us are outsiders in this country, seeing only its superficialities, blind to its spirit, poorer for that lack of connection. At a glance, the western deserts are featureless, inhospitable, best travelled through on the unbending Gunbarrel Highway. Here, accompanied by quixotic guides and encumbered by the gift and genius of western high culture, a narrator recounts his quest to find the essence of this country, to fit into the land. The result is a haunting dream about our nature.

John Woinarski is professor of conservation biology, Charles Darwin University.

Sophie Gee

James Baldwin was a literary provocateur and also a crowd-pleaser; a Black radical and activist who loved Dickens and Dostoevsky; a gay man who lived in Paris, and a public voice for American civil rights. Nicholas Boggs’ extraordinary new biography of one of America’s greatest writers, Baldwin: A Love Story (Bloomsbury Circus), captures all these aspects of Baldwin’s life and writing, giving us a deep and moving account of a person whose life was riven by violence and filled with joy and glamour.

Sophie Gee is vice chancellor’s fellow, English literature, University of Sydney and professor of English at Princeton University.

Euan Ritchie

“Nature is not the backdrop to our lives; it is our lives.” This sentiment and insight from the preface of Nature’s Last Dance (Affirm Press) perfectly frames the strength and vital importance of Natalie Kyriacou’s book. The natural world is under siege, and Natalie describes heartbreaking examples. But ultimately, this book inspires – through thoroughly entertaining, sometimes joyous, well-researched examples of the extraordinary wonders and complexity of nature. Practical advice for readers to enact personal changes of their own fosters hope and empowerment. Bravo.

Euan Ritchie is professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University.

Mia Martin Hobbs

Sunil Amrith’s The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years (Penguin) tells the story of how humanity has changed the planet we call home, untangling the environmental costs of empire, war, revolution and “progress” and revealing the devastating effects for the world’s poorest and most marginalised. Amrith shows how the human desire to control nature has, ironically, made our world less safe. The historical craft here is extraordinary: mind-bending and kaleidoscopic, The Burning Earth traverses the sweeping effects of colonisation, resource extraction, agriculture and development across every corner of the globe – while retaining individual stories of suffering and survival in the face of monumental environmental changes. Amrith’s work generates an urgent call to action to recognise the “crisis of life on Earth” before it is too late.

Mia Martin Hobbs is research fellow and historian of war and conflict, Deakin University.

Alexander Howard

Pierre Guyotat was one of postwar France’s most radical writers. Associated with the Tel Quel group and known for dense, hallucinatory prose that stretched language to breaking point, he made his name with Eden, Eden, Eden (1970) – a violent and apocalyptic text composed of a single, unbroken sentence running across 163 pages. At first glance, Idiocy (New York Review Books), his prize-winning coming-of-age memoir newly translated into English, seems formally restrained. However, a closer look reveals it to be just as intense and uncompromising. Spanning the years 1958 to 1962, the book traces his formative time in Paris and his experiences as a soldier in Algeria, where he was imprisoned for inciting desertion. Bearing witness to the atrocities of colonial conflict, Guyotat’s book feels disturbingly relevant right now.

Alexander Howard is senior lecturer, discipline of English and writing, University of Sydney.

Lynda Ng

Can we call it a genocide? Who was there first? Are we allowed to talk about this? In a year when Gaza dominated the headlines and yet public discussion was decidedly curtailed, Pankaj Mishra’s The World After Gaza (Fern Press) made a fearless foray into Zionism and the question of Palestine. Mishra’s decision to tell the history of Israel as a settler-colonial state has been highly contentious. By defamiliarising Middle Eastern politics, he forces us to reflect on how the legacy of European colonialism continues to play out in the world today.

Lynda Ng is lecturer in world literature (including Australian literature), University of Melbourne.

Eve Vincent

The Seal Woman (Giramondo), republished in 2025, was originally published the
same year as the Mabo decision: 1992. Dagmar, a Dane, is the novel’s protagonist. Living in a Victorian coastal town, Dagmar is filled with grief, desire and an obsessive interest in Norse mythology. She also undergoes an awakening about Aboriginal relations to ancestral Country. Beverley Farmer’s prose is incredibly focused and intricate. Reading of rockpools, seaweed, caves, spiders in the house, duplicity and selkies nourished and enlarged my imagination.

Eve Vincent is associate professor, anthropology, Macquarie University.

Tom Doig

Luke Kemp (originally from Bega, now based in Cambridge) has written an epic, sobering account of how and why human societies fall apart in Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Drawing on an exhaustive data set of 324 collapsed states, synthesising archaeology with psychology and political economy, he concludes that inequality, caused by corrupt elites, is the uniting feature. Any lessons for the present moment? Um, yep. While I’m usually sceptical of brief-history-of-everything books, Goliath’s Curse is a genuine joy to read. Pity about the ending (for us).

Tom Doig is a creative writing lecturer at the University of Queensland.

Juliet Rogers

Plestia Alqaad’s book Eyes of Gaza is not an easy read. It’s sad, painful and sometimes excruciatingly so. It is a book as witness; documenting the moments of trauma and violence in Gaza in the 45 days after October 7 2023. It shows this world through the eyes of a 23-year-old Palestinian journalist, describing a devastated landscape with nuance, with care and with the eye of someone who can read more than pain on people’s faces. Alqaad tells us of the occupation and the genocide but also the stories of camaraderie, of care, of collaboration between those who had lost everything. How can you share when you have nothing? It seems you can. Space, warmth, love and sometimes laughter are generated in proximity, even among terrible loss.

Juliet Rogers is a professor in criminology and director of the law and justice minor at University of Melbourne.

Natalie Kon-yu

Home – its myths and impossibilities – was at the heart of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, and is also the knotted centre of Mother Mary Comes to Me. In this memoir, Roy reveals the slippages that occur between fiction and nonfiction in writing a life. Roy’s mother, her country and her self form a set of nesting dolls that cannot nest, but cannot be understood without one another. A beautiful, generous book.

Natalie Kon-yu is a teaching and research associate professor in creative writing and literary studies.

Edwina Preston

My best book of 2025 is Shokoofeh Azar’s The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen (Europa). Azar’s second novel filled me with wonder and horror, and gave me entry to a strange, beautiful and wondrous world: that of the ancient Zoroastrian culture as it butts up against the murderous modern regimes of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei. A profoundly beautiful and harrowing work.

Edwina Preston is a novelist and PhD candidate in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne.

Julian Novitz

I Want Everything (Summit Books), Dominic Amerena’s blackly funny and acutely well observed satire of Melbourne literary life, struck close to home for me this year. I Want Everything explores Australian literary history and contemporary writing lives with an uncompromising eye as Amerena’s unnamed narrator attempts to extract material for an “eminently fundable” book from his chance encounter with a famously reclusive and mysterious author. Brilliantly funny, it develops the pace and tension of a thriller, as gambits and deceptions start to pile up. Best debut and best novel of 2025 for me.

Julian Novitz is senior lecturer, writing, Swinburne University of Technology.

Jen Webb

My pick is Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed’s The Nightmare Sequence (UQP). In a year marked by global levels of violence, both discursive and physical, Sakr and Ahmed use poetry and graphic art to express anger, truth-telling and tenderness. They remind readers that we humans are all in this together – and though “History is an angel with seven faces / All of them are turned away from us”, we can turn towards each other.

Jen Webb is distinguished professor emerita of creative practice, University of Canberra.

Matthew Sharpe

Most people are happy enough to accept the latest gadgets coming to us from Silicon Valley without asking too many questions about what the people who run the companies might think. Science journalist Adam Becker is not one of those content to “wait and see what happens”. In More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity (Basic Books), he probes the ideas of the “techbros” and their cheerleaders. And the news is not comforting. Claiming the mantle of science and backed by billions of dollars, these ideas are often troubling melanges from sci-fi, futurism and racist pseudoscience, whose implications for life as we know it are far from beneficent.

Matthew Sharpe is associate professor in philosophy, Australian Catholic University.

Allanah Hunt

Moonlight and Dust (Allen & Unwin) by Jasmin McGaughey is a fantasy novel that’s enticing from its first page with its dark academia and ecological themes. Set in stunning Cairns, the author’s strong voice weaves together a mystery about a young Torres Strait Islander girl who comes to life in the words, along with her endearing family.

Allanah Hunt is lecturer, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, University of Queensland.

Wanning Sun

In Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (Allen Lane), Dan Wang gives you a new lens through which to view China and US-China competition. Conceptualising China as an engineering state and America as a lawyerly society, Wang shows that China’s strengths are as impressive as its weaknesses are disturbing. But Wang does not take sides: Breakneck argues China has learned from the West, and now the West should learn from China. Whether or not you agree with him, it is likely to be a thought-provoking – even eye-opening – read.

Wanning Sun is professor of media and cultural studies, University of Technology Sydney.

Julienne van Loon

A yoga teacher, a poet and a long-time reader of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, Antonia Pont has delivered us an idiosyncratic and delightful new non-fiction book. With A Plain Life: On Thinking, Feeling and Deciding (New South), Pont advocates for plainness. That is, for a stance in which we decide for ourselves “that one’s life is intrinsically ‘enough’”. It’s a book about expectations and about capacities, including “unlearning meanness” in the context of our neoliberalist age. I believe the best books become not just an accompaniment, but a living companion: this is one such book.

Julienne van Loon is associate professor in creative writing, University of Melbourne.

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The Conversation

The Conversation: Long‑sought environmental law reform is finally here. But will the compromise deal actually protect nature?

Brayden Stanford/Pexels, CC BY-NC-ND

Justine Bell-James, Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland; Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University; Phillipa C. McCormack, Future Making Fellow, Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, and Yung En Chee, Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Science, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Today is a landmark day for environmental law. After years of false starts and abandoned promises, Labor has finally struck a deal with the Greens to pass long-awaited changes to the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The laws are expected to pass the Senate today – the final parliamentary sitting day of the year.

Change is long overdue, as the 25-year-old laws have been shown to be not fit for purpose. Australia’s unique species and ecosystems are in real trouble. Threatened species populations are falling year after year, while climate change is driving species to extinction and ecosystems towards collapse.

Significantly, neither Labor nor the Greens are declaring the bill a complete success. In its second reading today, Labor Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah described the bill as “not perfect”, while the Greens described it as falling “woefully short” on climate.

Environment Minister Murray Watt was negotiating with both the Coalition and the Greens to pass the laws. While the Greens agreed to the deal and extracted key concessions on native forest protections, Watt has left some wins for business and the Liberal Party.

The compromise deal is indeed far from perfect. But after five years of stalled reforms, it’s clear significant compromise was the only way for the laws to pass.

What was in the original reform bill?

In late October, Labor introduced reforms that proposed a slew of changes to existing environment laws.

These included provisions for:

  • making national environmental standards to guide decision-making
  • a new federal environmental protection agency
  • planning at a bioregional scale to assess cumulative damage across a landscape

These changes were broadly positive. But other elements raised considerable concern, namely:

  • considerable ministerial discretion over whether to apply the new national environmental standards to development applications
  • a wide-ranging national interest exemption allowing the government to fast-track projects in the undefined “national interest”
  • fast-tracking for some decisions
  • allowing developers to pay into a “restoration fund” to compensate for biodiversity loss despite evidence it worsens biodiversity loss
  • excluding native forest logging from Commonwealth oversight
  • plans to devolve environmental decision-making to states, with the pro-mining and anti-regulation Western Australian government the first in line.

The original 500-page draft bill had areas of considerable uncertainty, such as requiring the minister to knock back developments if satisfied they would have “unacceptable impacts”. The idea was sound: create red lines where projects don’t have to be considered if damage to the environment would be too great. But the definitions were confusing and subjective.

For instance, an “unacceptable impact” on a critically endangered species was defined as one that “seriously impairs, will seriously impair, or is likely to seriously impair” species viability. But “seriously impair” was nebulously defined as “something if, compared to the action not being taken, the impact results in the thing being seriously altered for the worse”. Industry criticised this for setting the bar too low, fearing it would stop projects in their tracks.

What concessions have the Greens secured?

While the Labor-Greens deal means the bills can now pass the Senate, it hasn’t fundamentally changed what was introduced by Labor. The concessions include:

  • better protection for native forests
  • banning fast-tracking of new coal and gas projects
  • reining in ministerial discretion.

The Greens are claiming their major concession is the removal of a longstanding exemption for the logging industry for areas of native forest covered by Regional Forest Agreements. Forested areas under these agreements currently have no protection from federal environment laws.

Under the changes, these agreements will have to comply with the laws and meet higher standards within 18 months. The deal contains compensation for forestry workers. This is a clear win for the environment.

The Greens also secured modest progress on climate, but far short of their long-sought climate trigger, which was a non-starter for Labor.

Instead, the bill will be amended to remove coal and gas projects from fast-tracked approvals and to prevent the minister from declaring these to be projects to be in the “national interest”.

Crucially, the Greens claim the deal will tighten ministerial discretion. The original reforms said the minister “must be satisfied” a decision is “not inconsistent with” the National Environmental Standards. This gave the environment minister of the day wide leeway to depart from the standards and approve projects. The Greens are claiming a major win here by changing the language from “not inconsistent with” these standards to “consistent with”. This isn’t semantics – it’s a stricter legal test.

The amendments will also bring more land clearing under the environment assessment regime and allow the minister to declare some matters too important to be offset by paying into the new Restoration Contributions Fund. This could be a potentially important safeguard.

Wins for the Liberals?

In recent months, Watt has pitched these reforms as a win for the environment and for business, which would benefit from faster approvals. But businesses were wary of the nebulous concept of “unacceptable impacts”.

It looks like Liberal Senator Jonathon Duniam’s proposed changes to the definition of “unacceptable impacts” have been supported.

The definition of an “unacceptable impact” on a critically endangered species has been pared back to “seriously impairs […] viability”. This means projects can’t be knocked back if they are only likely to seriously impair viability.

“Seriously impair” has now been redefined as “something if, compared to the action not being taken, the impact results in an impairment or alteration of the thing that is of a severe nature and extent”. These are terms requiring subjective interpretation, but “severe nature” may make it harder to reject projects than “seriously altered for the worse”.

Will the new legislation stem the damage to nature?

The bar for improvement is low. Australia’s current environment laws are riddled with administrative discretion. Many projects are never assessed, and 99% of projects assessed under these laws are given the green light.

The revised bill contains some key elements proposed by the scathing 2020 Samuel Review, such as provision for National Environmental Standards, while the concessions won by the Greens reduce ministerial discretion. Samuel described today’s deal as a “great balance” between environment and business concerns.

Much will be up in the air even after these laws pass. The government has only drafted two of the many environmental standards anticipated, one on matters of national environmental significance and one on environmental offsets. It remains to be seen whether these standards will improve decision-making, and they are also not yet finalised. Major questions around the interpretation of language in the new laws may need to be hashed out in future court proceedings.

The Greens were unable to remove Labor’s new “pay to destroy” from the laws. This is a significant concern, as the controversial ability for developers to pay into a restoration fund will likely be seen as the easy route. This mechanism is already up and running in New South Wales, with poor outcomes.

What now?

These reforms are the end of a tortuous process – and the start of another, far bigger, job. To be successful, they will need to be coupled with far greater public investment and rigorous enforcement.

The true test of these reforms will be whether we succeed in the ultimate act of conserving and recovering the wildlife and places Australians know and love.

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Nature under fire in Australia’s tropical savannas

Authors: Brett Murphy, John Woinarsk and Euan G Ritchie

Published in: Landscape Architecture Australia

The tropical savannas of northern Australia are highly vulnerable to changes in climate as well as to more direct human impacts.

Addressing these challenges will require urgent, coordinated action at all levels.

Murphy B, Woinarsk J, Ritchie EG (2025) Nature under fire in Australia’s tropical savannas. Landscape Architecture Australia PDF LINK

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Publications Research

Feral horses and their environmental impacts in the Australian Alps: policy and management priorities

Authors: Ayesha IT Tulloch, Euan G Ritchie, and Don Driscoll

Published in: Austral Ecology

Summary

Feral horses cause extensive ecological harm, including damage to soil, waterways, vegetation, and the carbon cycle, leading to declines in threatened species.

While most Australian states pursue population reduction or removal, NSW’s Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act mandates retention of horses in parts of Kosciuszko National Park, contradicting scientific consensus and national conservation policies.

Scientific evidence strongly supports complete removal of feral horses from sensitive alpine and subalpine ecosystems, as fencing and local exclusion are insufficient.

Effective protection and restoration of damaged alpine ecosystems requires coordinated management of all invasive species, evidence-based public communication, and legislative support.

Tulloch AIT, Ritchie EG, Driscoll DA (2025) Feral horses and their environmental impacts in the Australian Alps: policy and management priorities. Austral Ecology PDF DOI

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The Conversation: Dingoes are not domestic dogs – new evidence shows these native canines are on their own evolutionary path

By Kylie M Cairns (UNSW Sydney), Bradley Smith, (CQUniversity Australia), Euan Ritchie (Deakin University) and Thomas Newsome (University of Sydney).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For decades, scientists, policymakers, graziers and land managers have been locked in a surprisingly high-stakes debate over what defines a dingo. Are these wild canids their own species? Or are they simply feral dogs?

The intensity of the debate can seem baffling. But the naming of animals influences how they are perceived and managed. The dingo debate has very real consequences for conservation laws, cultural recognition and respect, and the future of one of Australia’s iconic animals.

In 2020, researchers proposed four conditions dingoes would have to meet to be considered separate from domestic dogs: reproductive isolation (they don’t mate and produce fertile offspring), genetic distinctiveness, independent evolutionary path and distinctiveness from South-East Asian village dogs, which superficially resemble dingoes.

In our new research, we lay out the scientific case showing dingoes do indeed meet these requirements, across genetic, behavioural, ecological and archaeological evidence. We now have a clear answer: dingoes are distinct.

Australia’s wild canines have been on their own evolutionary path for thousands of years. As a distinct lineage, they should be recognised in their own right as a species or subspecies. They are not Canis familiaris, the domestic dog. They should be named either Canis dingo or Canis lupus dingo.

Species aren’t always in neat boxes

A typical ginger dingo in the Strzelecki desert, South Australia.
Matthew Brun, CC BY-ND

One of the greatest challenges for modern taxonomy is how to categorise “species” that don’t fit in neat little boxes but exist along a continuum.

It’s harder still for species whose long and significant associations with humans can lead to substantial changes that are evolutionarily significant.

It’s widely accepted domestic and wild animal populations should be distinguished and be given different scientific names. Domestication is often portrayed as a simple before-and-after event. But this isn’t accurate.

Domestication is a long, messy continuum. Some domesticated species such as cattle and modern dog breeds depend on humans for their survival. But dingoes are different. They have lived alongside people but are also entirely capable of surviving without us, and have done so for thousands of years.

In evolutionary terms, what matters is the trajectory. Did human contact fundamentally alter the appearance, biology and behaviour of the species, locking it into a domestic lifestyle? Or did human influence have little effect, meaning the species has been shaped primarily by natural selection in the wild?

Do dingoes meet the criteria to be considered taxonomically distinct?

Many modern dog breeds such as pugs have been bred for specific body shapes and traits rendering them less likely to survive in the wild by themselves.
Abuk Sabuk/Wikimedia, CC BY

Our research shows how the four conditions have been met to consider dingoes separate:

1. Reproductive isolation

Dingoes have been separated from other Canis lineages for 8,000-11,000 years. Genetic studies show dingoes have little contemporary interbreeding with domestic dogs, even when they live in the same areas. While all Canis species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, differences in breeding seasons and behaviour act as natural barriers. Unlike dingoes, domestic dogs rarely establish wild, self-sustaining populations.

2. Genetic distinctiveness

Genome-wide analyses reveal dingoes descend from an ancient “eastern” dog lineage, while most modern domestic dogs come from “western” and “Arctic” dog lineages. Since their arrival in Australia, dingoes have remained genetically isolated.

3. An independent evolutionary lineage

From a genetic point of view, dingoes are more distinct from domestic dogs than domestic dog breeds are from each other. Modern dog breeds have undergone waves of mixing and human selection, while dingoes have not. This is why dingoes lack the genetic adaptations to starch-rich diets that domestic dogs evolved alongside agriculture and human contact.

Dingoes have carved out their own ecological niche in Australia’s unique environments, from deserts to snowy mountains. They have developed separate traits such as hyperflexible joints and a single breeding season over autumn and winter. By contrast, humans have heavily shaped the evolutionary path of domestic dogs, making them reliant on us.

4. Clear up whether dogs found in South-East Asia are dingoes

Some researchers have suggested dingo-like village dogs in South-East Asia are actually dingoes. While dingoes share some ancestors with these dogs, modern genetic evidence shows dingoes and their closest relatives, New Guinea singing dogs, are a separate population.

What’s in a name?

The question over how dogs evolved is not yet resolved. Some taxonomists believe dogs are a subspecies of wolf, while others disagree. Given this uncertainty, giving dingoes a unique scientific name can be done in two ways.

If we consider dingoes distinct from both dogs and wolves, the most appropriate name would be Canis dingo — recognising the dingo as its own species with a long, separate evolutionary history.

But if dingoes are not distinct from wolves, the correct name would be Canis lupus dingo. This would treat it as a subspecies of wolf, while still acknowledging its wild lineage separate to domestic dogs.

The name of the dingo matters

There is real power in the name of a species.

Under some state laws, dingoes are defined as “wild dogs”. This means dingoes are targeted for lethal control – even in many national parks. If treated as a domestic dog, dingoes can be ineligible for official threatened species lists.

As a result, the species is often overlooked for targeted conservation, while its culturally significant role for many First Nations peoples is often not recognised nor respected.

Defining dingoes as a distinct species or subspecies would allow governments to differentiate them from domestic dogs in laws, policies and conservation programs, and align western science with First Nations knowledge holders who have long distinguished between dingoes and dogs.

Ending decades of confusion will take work

Dingoes are culturally important for many First Nations peoples. This is a black and tan Wilkerr (the name used by Wotjobaluk peoples in northwestern Victoria) in Wyperfeld National Park.
Big Desert Dingo Research, CC BY-NC-ND

To clear up long-running disagreement over the dingo, we believe the time has come for an independent, evidence-based review by a national scientific body. This would bring together geneticists, ecologists, taxonomists and First Nations representatives.

This approach helped untangle similarly knotty problems overseas, such as the United States National Academies’ review to settle the taxonomy of red and Mexican wolves.

An Australian review could finally end decades of confusion for the dingo and ensure our laws reflect the most up-to-date scientific evidence.

Taxonomic debates might sound obscure. But this naming question will shape the future of one of Australia’s ecologically and culturally significant animals.

We believe the evidence shows the dingo is not a domestic dog – it’s on its own path. The question is whether Australia can accept this evidence.

The Conversation
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Science communication The Conversation

The Conversation: Want to see Australia’s rare and remarkable species for yourself? Here are 10 standout spots

Brolgas (Antigone rubicunda) Uwe-Bergwitz/Getty

By Patrick Finnerty (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Conservation and Wildlife Management, University of Sydney), Euan Ritchie (Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University) and Rhys Cairncross (Ecologist and PhD Researcher, University of Sydney).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is home to an extraordinary variety of wildlife, ranging from striking palm cockatoos to elusive mountain pygmy-possums and remarkable rat-kangaroos.

Most of us never get to see these creatures in real life – and that’s a real shame. Spending time in nature looking for wildlife is more than just a hobby – it’s a way to reconnect with the natural world and remember why it matters.

But how do you actually see these creatures for yourself? It’s often easier than you think.

As wildlife researchers, we’ve spent a long time in the field looking for wildlife. Here are ten standout locations where you have a good chance of seeing some genuinely remarkable Australian creatures – and tips on doing so without causing them stress or harming the environment.

1. Kutini-Payamu / Iron Range National Park, Queensland

Located in far north Queensland, Iron Range is renowned for lush rainforests and rich wildlife. Here, you can spot majestic palm cockatoos, secretive green pythons, the striking green, red and blue hues of eclectus parrots and the adorable common spotted cuscus, a species of possum. These species also occur in Papua New Guinea, but the Cape York region is the only place to spot them in Australia.

Spotting tips: Walk the trails with binoculars during peak times for bird activity, early morning or late afternoon. At night, use a head torch to spot pythons, frogs, death adders, geckoes, rufous owls, cuscus and other nocturnal fauna.

2. Atherton Tablelands, Queensland

The shy spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) lives in Australia’s far north. John Giustina/Getty

Inland from Cairns lies the Atherton Tablelands, an elevated region with a cooler climate and abundant and diverse wildlife. Here, you can spot vibrant Ulysses butterflies, shy platypuses and rare marsupials. Australia’s largest snake, the scrub python, can block entire roads as it warms itself up before the night’s hunt. Rare waterfall frogs can be spotted in fast-flowing falls.

Lumholtz’s tree kangaroos can be spotted hopping along limbs at Curtain Fig National Park and Mount Hypipamee National Park, alongside green ringtail possums and striped possums with elongated fingers to ferret out grubs.

Meanwhile, musky rat-kangaroos can be seen “gardening” on the forest floor at Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine. These are the smallest kangaroos and the only non-hopping species. Your best chance of sighting an elusive northern quoll or northern bettong is at Davies Creek National Park.

Spotting tips: Take guided night walks to glimpse nocturnal wildlife. Use a head torch with a red filter. Move quietly and regularly stop to listen for movement and animal calls. Binoculars are a must for spotting creatures high in the canopy.

3. Western Treatment Plant, Victoria

Surprisingly, Melbourne’s Western Treatment Plant is a mecca for birdwatchers. The huge wastewater facility is recognised as a wetland of international importance. Migratory birds such as sharp-tailed sandpipers and red-necked stints can be seen, while well-hidden bitterns, rare orange-bellied parrots and Australia’s dancing crane, the brolga, can be glimpsed feeding in dense heath during cooler months. Almost 300 species have been recorded here.

Spotting tips: Visit during migration seasons (spring and autumn) for the best birdwatching opportunities. Use binoculars, telescopes, or telephoto lenses for close-up views without disturbance. Visitors need a permit.

4. Lunawanna-allonah / Bruny Island and Wukaluwikiwayna / Maria Island, Tasmania

South of Hobart lies Bruny Island, a sanctuary for endangered species such as eastern and spotted-tailed quolls. Most of Tasmania’s endemic bird species are found here, such as green rosellas and forty-spotted pardalotes. Rare swift parrots can also be seen.

North of Hobart is Maria Island, an island national park where no cars are allowed – and where Tasmanian devils, bandicoots and wombats can readily be seen.

Spotting tips: Join guided tours to see nocturnal wildlife or birds in Bruny Island’s tall forests. Eastern quolls can often be seen at night on the main road when heading north from the island’s isthmus. Tasmanian devils and bandicoots can be seen around campsites at Maria Island at night.

5. Flinders, Portsea and Blairgowrie piers, Victoria

Snorkelling the cool waters beneath Flinders, Portsea and Blairgowrie piers is a revelation. Here live spectacular weedy sea dragons, sand octopuses, big-belly seahorses, ornate cowfish, smooth and eagle rays, Port Jackson and banjo sharks and vividly coloured nudibranchs.

Spotting tips: Snorkel or dive during calm weather for best visibility. Keep your distance from marine life for their safety (and yours).

6. Sydney Harbour and cliff tops, New South Wales

Sydney’s iconic harbour and surrounding cliffs are well suited for marine life enthusiasts. Every winter, humpback and southern right whales migrate past the headlands, while pods of bottlenose dolphins can be seen year-round. White-bellied sea eagles, Australasian gannets and short-tailed shearwaters add to the spectacle in the skies.

Spotting tips: Join whale-watching cruises between May and November for the best chance. Clifftop spotting is best done with binoculars from Royal National Park, North Head, Clovelly and The Gap.

7. Binybara / Lee Point, Northern Territory

The black-footed tree-rat (Mesembriomys gouldii) is a clever native rodent with a knack for life in the trees. François Brassard, CC BY-NC-ND

Just north of Darwin is Lee Point, one of the best places to glimpse the elusive black-footed tree-rat. Weighing almost a kilo, this threatened native rodent is an expert climber and lives in tree hollows.

Around 200 bird species have also been recorded here. Flocks of great knots, eastern curlews and grey-tailed tattlers feed on the mudflats, while the woodlands are home to the dazzling colour of Gouldian finches and the charismatic blue-winged kookaburra.

Spotting tips: Visit at night to see the tree-rat moving between trees, or come at low tide to watch thousands of shorebirds feeding. Binoculars will be invaluable.

8. Wadjemup / Rottnest Island, Western Australia

The ‘smiling’ quokkas (Setonix brachyurus) on Rottnest Island have become globally famous. Posnov/Getty

Offshore from Perth, Rottnest Island is rightly famous for its smiling quokkas. But other unique species such as King’s skink and venomous dugites can be seen here too, while osprey nests occupied for decades can be seen on rock stacks. The reefs around the island have WA’s southernmost coral.

Spotting tips: Cycling is the best way to explore different habitats on the largely car-free island. Keep your distance from quokkas and other wildlife to ensure they stay wild.

9. Kunama Namadgi / Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales

Mountain pygmy possums (Burramys parvus) are hard to spot – but the thrill of seeing these tiny, secretive marsupials is hard to beat. Jason Edwards/Getty

Australia’s highest peaks are home to the nation’s most remarkable alpine wildlife. Birdwatchers can spot gang-gang cockatoos feeding in eucalypts, while lucky hikers might glimpse an alpine dingo crossing a snow-dusted plain, or see a strikingly coloured Corroborree frog in a bog or fen.

This is the only place in the world where you can encounter a critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum. These tiny marsupials hibernate under winter snow and emerge to feed on bogong moths in spring.

Kosciuszko is also home to the native smoky mouse and – remarkably – to Leadbeater’s possum, long thought to be confined to Victoria’s Central Highlands.

Spotting tips: For the best chance of spotting a mountain pygmy-possum, visit between late spring and early summer when the snow has melted. Stick to alpine boulder fields such as those around Charlotte Pass and Mount Kosciuszko. You may need to camp overnight to see nocturnal possums and the smoky mouse. Binoculars and patience are essential to glimpse these shy species.

10. Karta Pintingga/Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Southwest of Adelaide lies the large Kangaroo Island, home to echidnas, tammar wallabies, a rare subspecies of the glossy black-cockatoo and Kangaroo Island dunnarts. Koalas are common. While the island’s isolation has protected these species, the 2020 megafires caused much damage. Wildlife is now bouncing back.

Spotting tips: Explore national parks and conservation areas with a local guide. Observe from a distance.

Take care of wildlife

Wildlife spotting has to be done with care. Think of yourself as a guest in someone else’s home.

Keep a respectful distance, don’t touch wildlife, move quietly and use binoculars or a zoom lens for a closer look rather than creeping closer.

If you’re out after dark, make sure your head torch has a red light option. This light is vastly less damaging to animal eyes optimised for the dark.

When snorkelling or diving, avoid hitting corals and sponges with your fins.

It can be tempting to use playback of calls to attract birds such as owls. But this is very disruptive and can do real damage.

Avoid moving logs, bark, stones and other habitat in your effort to see animals. This is disruptive and risks bites from venomous creatures.

Clean and disinfect your boots before moving between areas to avoid spreading soil-borne pathogens such as cinnamon fungus and chytrid fungus.

Whatever you do, don’t feed wildlife. It might seem harmless, but it can change their natural behaviour, make them ill and even make them dependent on people.

Posting sightings on citizen science apps such as iNaturalist and FrogID can help scientists learn more about these species and aid their conservation.

Enjoy the journey

As wildlife researchers, we often seek out species in their natural habitat. These moments never lose their impact.

It’s a remarkable thing to see a creature in its natural habitat. A successful sighting gives a sense of awe and joy. At a time when many people are cut off from nature, deliberately seeking out these species is a powerful and rewarding act.

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The Conversation: Top End’s tropical savannas are a natural wonder – but weak environment laws mean their future is uncertain

Gouldian Finch, François Brassard

By Euan Ritchie (Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University), Brett Murphy (Professor of Ecology, Charles Darwin University) and John Woinarski (Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory contains an extensive, awe-inspiring expanse of tropical savanna landscapes. It includes well-known and much-loved regions such as Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Arnhem Land and Nitmiluk Gorge.

Australia’s tropical savannas are diverse and dynamic, shaped by fire and the cycle of wet and dry seasons. Brett Murphy

These tropical savannas feature open forests and woodlands dominated by eucalypts and a diverse grassy understorey. They experience an intense monsoon-driven wet season and long dry season during which fire is common.

The area is home to a spectacular range of plants and animals, including crocodiles, barramundi, speartooth sharks, the spectacularly coloured Leichhardt’s grasshopper and flocks of magpie geese. Some groups are extraordinarily diverse. Several thousand ant species are thought to live there – compared to just 1,000 species in South America’s Amazon basin.

Yet, despite their immense ecological and cultural significance, the NT’s tropical savannas face an uncertain future. The landscape is under increasing pressure from invasive species, more frequent and severe fires, climate change, mining, agriculture and development – including water extraction.

Our new report outlines what should be done to ensure conservation and sustainable management of this unique and special region.

A region in trouble

Species such as the brush-tailed rabbit-rat have declined substantially and are now locally extinct in some areas. Cara Penton

As ecologists, we share a deep passion for tropical Northern Australia but fear for its future. To aid environmental policy and decision-making, we set out to describe the current condition and likely future of the NT’s tropical savannas. This involved identifying existing, emerging and possible future threats.

We found biodiversity in decline. Many species, particularly mammals that were once common and widespread, have disappeared from much of the region. These include the northern quoll, brush-tailed rabbit-rat and black-footed tree-rat.

Habitats are degraded and ecosystems are showing signs of collapse. Feral animals are widespread. Cats prey on native wildlife. Feral pigs feast on turtle nests and trash plants in and around waterways, reducing water quality. Cattle, water buffalo, horses and donkeys eat their way through native plants, reducing habitat structure and complexity, aiding the establishment and spread of weeds.

In many parts of the Top End, fires are becoming more frequent and severe. This is in part due to the increasing dominance of invasive grasses, particularly Gamba and buffel grass. Both grasses are highly flammable, increasing the risk and harm of fires.

Longer and hotter dry seasons also increase fire risk and severity, as well as making water less available to wildlife due to higher rates of evaporation. Plants and animals also face greater heat stress and risk of dying during extended periods of extreme temperatures.

The changing nature of land-clearing

The Top End is spectacular and rich in biodiversity. François Brassard

Land-clearing is increasing in the Top End, too. We estimate about 45,000 hectares of savanna habitat was destroyed between 2000 and 2020. That’s equivalent to an area roughly the size of 22,500 Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

Another 146,000 hectares have approval to be cleared, and an additional 100,000 hectares could be cleared for an expanded cotton industry.

It is not just the amount of clearing that matters, but where it occurs. The habitat mainly destroyed to date has been in higher rainfall areas between Darwin and Katherine. This is where most threatened species live. On average, the cleared areas overlapped with more than 12 nationally listed threatened species.

What should be done?

The Top End is awe inspiring but without greater enviromental protection its many values may be diminished. François Brassard

Our report shows current laws are insufficient to protect the Northern Territory’s tropical savannas. Evidence-based law reform is urgently needed.

Decision-making must be collaborative, not controlled by individuals, based on sound science. It must also actively support and involve First Nations peoples and their goals.

The situation in the NT reflects broader calls to strengthen national environmental laws as a matter of urgency and greatly boost investment in conservation to achieve positive results for nature.

Nature is the lynchpin of northern Australia. It characterises and nurtures the place, underpins and embraces Indigenous culture, is a major tourist attraction and helps make our country healthy. We need to recognise its value, and guard against its ongoing loss.

Our report was independently reviewed by experts in the ecology and conservation of Northern Australia, Professors Richard Williams and Christopher Johnson.

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Habitat selection and movement behaviour of long-nosed potoroo in the presence of feral cats

Authors: Meg Farmer, Anthony R Rendall, Amy Coetsee, and Euan G Ritchie

Published in: Austral Ecology

Abstract

The global biodiversity extinction crisis is attributed to a series of key threats, with the introduction and impacts of invasive predators considered among the most damaging. Given that effective large-scale lethal control is often not logistically or financially feasible, alternative solutions to promote the persistence of native wildlife most at risk of predation—critical weight range mammals—must be sought. Understanding habitat use and selection of native prey under predation pressure with widespread and common invasive predators, such as feral cats, can quantify habitat elements that may promote survival.

We aimed to determine the movement behaviour of a population of critical weight range mammals persisting in the presence of feral cats. We established a trapping grid across ‘Bluegums’, French Island, in south-eastern Australia to collect morphometric, demographic and movement data by deploying GPS tracking devices on Long-nosed Potoroo (Potorous tridactylus trisulcatus). We used spatially explicit capture–recapture models to generate a potoroo density estimate, and autocorrelated kernel density estimators and dynamic Brownian Bridge Movement Models to examine home range and habitat use. Spatial overlap and habitat selection analyses were used to draw inferences about habitat selection and territoriality.

Potoroos persisted at low densities and had large home ranges (7.3–12.5 ha). Individuals selected for structurally complex habitat and appeared reluctant to move across open areas, potentially in response to greater perceived predation risk. The fine-scale movement data in our study elucidate the extent to which potoroos rely on vegetation structure, suggesting that maintaining habitat cover and connectivity is likely to build resilience and aid potoroos and similar species to co-exist with feral cats.

Given the ongoing threat feral cats pose to biodiversity, our results support the need for maintaining diverse, structurally complex vegetation to build ecosystem resilience to support improved conservation outcomes in the presence of invasive species.

Farmer M, Rendall AR, Coetsee A, Ritchie EG (2025) Habitat selection and movement behaviour of long‐nosed potoroo in the presence of feral cats. Austral Ecology PDF DOI