The koala is being considered for official listing as endangered after the summer’s bushfire disaster and ongoing habitat destruction on the east coast forced the government to reconsider its threat status. The iconic species, which is currently listed as vulnerable under national environment laws, is among 28 animals that could have their threat status upgraded, […]
Tag: Australia
380 whales dead in worst mass stranding in Australia’s history
About 380 pilot whales were confirmed dead in Tasmania’s west on Wednesday afternoon with rescuers fighting to save the remaining 30 that are still alive. More than 450 long-finned pilot whales were caught on sandbanks and beaches inside Macquarie Harbour, with a rescue effort starting on Tuesday morning. Some 50 whales have been rescued and […]
‘Sit! sit!’ How one Australian dealt with a 4m crocodile called ‘Bonecruncher’
For most people, the sight of an approaching crocodile, mouth wide open, would provide the fright of a life. And their fear would be rightly placed, as encounters between man and saltwater crocs typically have deathly ends for the former. Not for Matt Wright, the so-called “outback wrangler”. “Stay, sit, sit!” Wright instructed the croc ominously […]
Could a million freshwater turtles help clean up some of Australia’s polluted rivers? A team of scientists believes, they could!
For well over a century, freshwater fish from Europe – the carp (originally from China), have been released, either deliberately or accidentally from fish farms, into Australian waterways. The fish, now widely regarded as pests, are thriving. Their habitat includes rivers flowing through the Murray-Darling Basin of New South Wales. Those vast waterways support, through […]
‘Rolling and rolling and rolling’: the first detailed account of great white shark sex
It has been described as the “holy grail” of marine biology, an act that is crucial to the survival of apex predators but has never been documented in detail: the mating of great white sharks. Despite decades of research into the habits of the white pointer, how and where the marine creatures mate has largely […]
‘Something’s going to give’: Platypus staring down the barrel of extinction
Platypus are one step closer to being listed as vulnerable to extinction in Victoria. Citing “mounting evidence” that numbers of these aquatic monotremes have “reduced significantly”, the Scientific Advisory Committee issued a preliminary recommendation that it be listed as threatened. Drought, bushfire, climate change, habitat destruction and human population growth have all been listed as […]
Port Macquarie shark attack: surfer saves wife by punching shark in the head
A woman is in a stable condition in hospital as authorities hunt the juvenile great white shark that attacked her on the NSW mid north coast. The 35-year-old was rushed to Port Macquarie Base Hospital with serious leg injuries after she was mauled off the city’s Shelley Beach about 9.30am on Saturday. Her husband came […]
Three women injured swimming with whales in Australia in space of a week
A woman snorkeling on Ningaloo Reef, on the north-west coast of Western Australia, has become the third person to be injured by a humpback whale there in less than a week. The woman, Alicia Ramsay, 30, was flown to Royal Perth hospital with rib fractures on Thursday after being hit by the whale, which was […]