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Australia’s mammal fauna requires a strategic and enhanced network of predator-free havens

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 410–411 (2018)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Introduced cats (Felis catus) and European red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have caused the precipitous decline and extinction of many native mammal species in Australia1. Many surviving species now persist in the wild only on predator-free islands and in small natural refugia where introduced predators are at low density. These natural refugia have inspired the creation of ‘safe havens’: areas where populations of imperilled mammals can be protected from introduced predators, either on offshore islands, or by predator-proof fences on the mainland2.

Most havens have been created by governments, non-government organizations and private landholders acting largely independently of each other. Under a decentralized governance structure, and without an explicitly unified objective, new havens risk being established inefficiently, as seen in the early growth of protected area networks3,4. For example, although the 11 havens created over the past seven years increased protection for 16 predator-susceptible taxa, these were already represented in the haven network and no unrepresented taxa were added to the network (Fig. 1). Twenty-nine predator-susceptible taxa remain unrepresented in the haven network. If a primary conservation objective is to ensure comprehensive protection for all at-risk species, current expansion is performing poorly.

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Fig. 1: Increase in species representation under haven network expansion.

b, Dave Watts/Alamy Stock Photo.

References

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Australian government’s National Environmental Science Program, through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia

    Jeremy Ringma

  2. Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia

    Jeremy Ringma & Sarah Legge

  3. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, The University of Hawai‘i, Manoa, HI, 96822, USA

    Jeremy Ringma

  4. Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601, Australia

    Sarah Legge

  5. Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, Northern Territory, 0909, Australia

    John Woinarski

  6. Research Centre for Future Landscapes, School of Life Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, 3083, Australia

    Jim Radford

  7. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Brendan Wintle

  8. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4811, Australia

    Michael Bode

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  1. Jeremy Ringma
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Correspondence to Jeremy Ringma.

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Ringma, J., Legge, S., Woinarski, J. et al. Australia’s mammal fauna requires a strategic and enhanced network of predator-free havens. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 410–411 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0456-4

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