Cat science finalist for Eureka Prize

Webinar series: Indigenous caring for country - working and learning together for species and places

Our Nov-Dec webinar series will bring together Indigenous leaders and partners to share insights from collaborations across the country. Kicking off in NAIDOC week with insights on building effective research partnerships, the series will highlight innovative work underway among Indigenous leaders and communities to care for special species and places, grow livelihoods, promote traditional knowledge and guide and integrate new research insights.  

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Cat diseases have $6 billion impact on human health in Australia

Reducing Australia's feral and roaming pet cat populations would have benefits not only for wildlife. Cats can carry a number of diseases that can infect humans, with sometimes severe and tragic health consequences. Hub research published in Wildlife Research has quantified the human health impacts and costs of these cat-dependent diseases in Australia for the first time. The study found that these diseases cause over 550 deaths and 8,500 hospitalisations in Australia each year and cost the economy $6 billion per year. 

THE CONVERSATION
RESEARCH FINDINGS FACTSHEET
VIDEO

The 22 freshwater fishes most at risk of extinction

Twenty-two native freshwater fish have been identified as likely to become extinct within the next twenty years, unless there is new conservation action, according to new hub research published in Pacific Conservation Biology. Most of the species identified are small-bodied. Trout, much larger predatory species introduced to Australia for recreational fishing, have taken a heavy toll on small native fish, especially across southern Australia. Understanding which species are at risk is a vital first step in preventing their extinctions.

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RESEARCH FINDINGS FACTSHEET
VIDEO

Protecting persistence: Listing species after the fires

Such was the scale of the 2019–20 fires that many species thought secure suddenly lost a significant amount of their population – burnt in the flames or dying of starvation in the immediate aftermath. Professor Stephen Garnett of Charles Darwin University walks us through how listing works to afford legal protection to species newly at risk of extinction. 

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Managing fire to protect monsoon vine thickets

The Bardi Jawi rangers, Nyul Nyul rangers, Yawuru country managers and Sarah Legge explain how ranger groups are managing fire on the Dampier Peninsula to protect and recover monsoon vine thickets, an Endangered ecological community that contains many food and medicinal plant species of cultural importance.

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Post-fire recovery of Australia’s threatened woodlands: Avoiding uncharted trajectories 

The 2019–20 bushfires burnt some of Australia’s most threatened woodland communities. Dr Libby Rumpff and Dr Megan Good of The University of Melbourne have been building a State and Transition Model based on expert knowledge to help inform recovery planning for Australia’s threatened woodland communities. Using the model can help post-fire monitoring and management to avoid negative outcomes for threatened woodland ecosystems.

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Fire, cats, foxes and land management: Lessons learned

Fire is a feature of just about every habitat across Australia. There are broad trends and theories that hold in fire ecology in Australia, yet when it comes to understanding fire for conservation management, local management is absolutely essential. Dr Hugh McGregor of the University of Tasmania/Arid Recovery explains why.

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Indigenous advisor profile: Oliver Costello

My name is Oliver Costello, and I’m a Bundjalung man. I was born in Byron Bay and grew up around the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. As a child, I developed a real appreciation for Country through exploring, camping, hunting and catching fish. My parents were strong about my identity, and made sure I knew I was Aboriginal, and connected me with Elders and communities.

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Check out our latest findings factsheets

Want to keep abreast of our latest research findings and their implications? We now have 120 research findings factsheets available and more being added to our website every week. See the full list or check out a few of our latest releases:

• Can culling noisy miners save declining temperate woodland birds?
• Conserving forty-spotted pardalotes by “self-fumigation” of nests
• The discovery of novel papillomaviruses in Christmas Island geckos
• Toxoplasmosis and mammal declines
• Can remote sensing estimate biomass to manage grazing pressure in buloke woodlands?
• Use of artificial habitat in reptile and amphibian monitoring
• Use of eDNA to track cryptic burrowing petrels on Macquarie Island