Many Australian mammals are going extinct

#quoll #feralcat #landmammals #marinemammals It is real bad news for a country like Australia where extinction of mammals is unthinkable because of the vast size of the country coupled with the minimum possibilities of loss of habitat which is generally believed to be associated with the extinction of species.
However, it is a fact that Australia has lost one in ten of its native mammals species over the last 200 years in what is described by conservationists as an "extinction calamity" as reported in bbc.com dated 10 February 2015.
No other nation has had such a high rate of loss of land mammals over this time period, as revealed by scientists of the Charles Darwin University, Australia and it is felt that the decline can be attributed to predation by the feral cat and the red fox, which were introduced from Europe.
Moreover, large scale fires to manage land are also having an impact.
Actually, as an affluent nation with a small population, Australia's wildlife should be relatively secure from threats such as habitat loss. However, reality says something else. As per a survey it has been stated that since 1788, 11% of 273 native mammals living on land have died out, 21% are threatened and 15% are near threatened.
One of the endangered species is the northern quoll which is a mammal species native to Australia like the brush-tailed rabbit-rat. A further 56 Australian land mammals are now threatened. The loss is not readily noticeable because they usually involve small, nocturnal, shy species that very few people know about.
In contrast, marine mammals are faring better.