10 species identified as at serious risk of extinction in Australia

Sydney, Oct 5 (IANS) Australia is one of the world leaders in mammal extinctions and 10 species have been identified as among the most imperilled, the country's national environmental organisation said on Saturday.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has consulted a range of ecologists and biologists and identified 10 species as at serious risk of extinction, the organisation said in a media release.

They are Tasmania's Maugean skate, the swift parrot, the regent honeyeater, a small wallaby called the Top End nabarlek, the Baw Baw frog, Victoria's grassland earless dragon, the central rock-rat, the Kangaroo Island assassin spider and two plants, the Tunbridge leek-orchid and the Coffs Harbour Fontainea, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Without the full reform of Australia's unfit-for-purpose nature law and no sign of an independent agency to enforce the law, these 10 highly imperilled plants and animals are staring down the barrel of extinction," ACF nature campaigner Darcie Carruthers was quoted as saying.

"Some are threatened by particular industries. For example, Tasmania's Maugean skate is under direct threat from intensive salmon farming in its home of Macquarie Harbour," Carruthers said. "The survival of the swift parrot is dependent on the species having suitable nesting and food trees, but commercial logging is destroying its essential breeding trees."

"In virtually every case, destruction of the species' habitat is the defining problem," she said.

As of September 2024, there are a total of 2,245 species on the national list of flora, fauna and ecological communities that are threatened with extinction, according to the ACF's Extinction Roulette report.