CUTE BUT CRITICAL

FREO filmmaker Jane Hammond has brought to the world stage Western Australia’s black cockatoo crisis in which our threatened feathered friends face extinction.
Sadly, this beloved species without science and conservation is one of many in WA that will leave the evolutionary stage within just a few years.
Also critically endangered, the western swamp turtle, hairy marron, white-bellied frog, woylie and rat-kangaroo Gilbert’s potoroo, with some populations numbering only a few hundred individuals.
A severe drought, new land subdivision or devastating bushfire … and gone, for good.
And then there introduced predators such as cats and foxes to habitat loss, pollution and disease.
Gilbert’s potoroo is the rarest marsupial in the world and Australia’s most critically endangered mammal with less than 50 individuals in the wild in just one small population at Mt Gardner in Two Peoples Bay, much of which was burnt out by fire in 2015.
About 100 Australian endemic species have disappeared since Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, including 38 plants, 34 mammals, 10 invertebrates, nine birds, four frogs, three reptiles, a fish and protist (mostly single-celled, microscopic organism not considered to be animal, plant or fungi).
Hammond told StreetWise the black cockatoos carry the universal story of the biodiversity crisis: “They are loved, local and visible so are easy to relate to. It’s a way to make the biodiversity crisis real, relatable and comprehensible.”

HAIRY MARRON IN HOT WATER
THIS enigmatic omnivore that eats it own young is named after tufts of hair-like bristles (setae) on its hard upper shell.
The world’s largest freshwater crayfish is concentrated in three main pools in the upper reaches of Margaret River.
At last count, fewer than 1000 hairy individuals are left in a 50km stretch of the popular river, listed as, “fauna that is rare or is likely to become extinct”. in 2004, less than 10,000 individuals were recorded in the wild.
These hairies or ‘mossybacks’ can grow to more than 450mm in length and weigh more than 2kg, making them a prized catch for predators.
The biggest threat is their close relative, smooth marron, introduced into dams and rivers in the 1980s. Marron populations in the upper reaches were wholly hairy in 1995.
In 2002, hairies contributed only 30 per cent of the marron population, with estimates now ranging between five to 25 per cent of marron in the upper reaches of Margaret River. It is likely smoothies will prevail.

TINY SWAMP TURTLE
THEY can live for more than 50 years, yet within years this population of about 50 cute freshwater reptiles with a taste for live food such as tadpoles and small fish could disappear.
Incredibly, the short-necked western swamp tortoise was thought to be extinct for more than a century until it was rediscovered in 1953 living in two small habitats at Twin Swamps and Ellen Brook nature reserves in the Swan Valley.
One of the most endangered reptiles in Australia, they are tiny, the smallest of semi-aquatic turtles with males weighing up to 550 grams and females 410 grams.
Remaining numbers are highly vulnerable to changes in their habitat such as land clearing for housing and agriculture, use of pesticides and fertilisers, extreme dry conditions and predators, cats, rats and foxes.
Since 1989, Perth Zoo has bred more than 800 Western Swamp Tortoises of which 600 have been released into the wild. It’s a waiting game.


WHITE-BELLIED FROG

ONLY discovered in 1980, with a maximum size of 2.5cm and weighing about a gram, only about 3000 individual frogs survive in swamps and creeks in a 130sqkm area between Margaret River and Augusta.
With a third of the world’s threatened amphibians, the first conservation efforts to translocate WA’s critically endangered frog surfaced in the early 2000s, but with limited success.
The Perth Zoo also has run a breeding program since 2008 to protect remaining habitats in Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, Forest Grove, Witchcliffe forest estate, as well as private land.

WOYLIE
NOCTURNAL with a highly developed sense of smell that enables them to communicate using scent from urine and faeces or rubbing scent glands on their body, the woylie are important as ‘ecosystem engineers’ because their digging and foraging helps to spread seeds and fungal spores to create a healthy ecosystem.
The small kangaroo-like forager sports a long tail with black brushy tip used to pick up grass and branches to build their nests.
Woylies’ average life span is only six to eight years. They once inhabited more than 60 per cent of mainland Australia (now down to one per cent), with most species reportedly extinct by the 1920s.
 Predation by cats and foxes, loss of habitat, disease and hunting has restricted the woylie to small pockets in southwestern WA and offshore islands in South Australia.
Numbers continue to fall. From 15,000 in 2001 to about 1000 individuals today. Conservation efforts to prevent feral predation in the 1980s and 1990s established new populations in other southwest forest areas of southwestern WA and Shark Bay World Heritage Area in the Peron Peninsula.