Abstract for presentation at Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference - A Pacific Response

Since European settlement of Australia in 1788, the continent has suffered the world's highest rate of mammal extinction, with 27 species and subspecies lost. Many more species have declined and are at risk of future extinction, especially in arid and semi-arid parts of the continent. A wealth of evidence implicates two species of introduced predators, the red fox Vulpes vulpes and the feral cat Felis catus, as the primary cause of many range reductions and extinctions. The dingo Canis lupus dingo, itself introduced some 4,000 years ago, has been identified as a potential constraint on the destructive effects of the smaller introduced predators, but is subject to severe suppression by the pastoral industry due to its attacks on sheep. A case study analysis of the large (325,000 square kilometre) rangeland region of New South Wales suggests that sympathetic management and reintroduction of the dingo in this conservation wasteland could benefit 21 nationally or regionally threatened species of native mammals. Such management should begin in national parks and private conservation areas, and supplant sheep flocks in areas where these are now ecologically and economically unsustainable. A major challenge is to transform ecological knowledge to political action.