Queensland’s Threatened Animals
A very detailed resource published this year by CSIRO is the book edited by Lee Curtis and others, “Queensland’s Threatened Animals”
From CSIRO’s website:
This book features up-to-date distribution data, photos and maps for most of Queensland’s threatened animals. It also includes a comprehensive list of resources, with key state, national and international organisations involved in the recovery and management of threatened species.
To view further details (and order a copy) visit http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6473.htm
What about Tasmanian Tiger? I am not able to find any article on this rare animal. Are any of them still alive?
Unfortunately the last one appears to have died in captivity on 7th September 1936. Since then every now and then someone claims to have seen one, but there has been no proof, so it has started to sound a little like those who claim to see Elvis Presley. This is why 7th September each year is Threatened Species Day – we remember this loss and hope to prevent too many more happening.
The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine), a large carnivorous marsupial, used to be found all over Australia, but seems to have died out from the mainland about 3,000 years ago after the dingo was introduced (presumably by Indonesian sailors trading with the Aboriginals of northern Australia. The dingo may have been too great a competitor for scarce resources, or perhaps the Aborigines used the dingo to hunt the thylacine. Dingos never reached Tasmania, and the Thylacine still thrived there until white settlers arrived and started hunting them because they were eating their chickens and sheep. They were finally protected, but too late.
Fortunately the Tasmanian Devil is still living in Tasmania, but it is now threatened by a kind of contagious facial cancer. There are healthy populations in some zoos, so there are a number of conservation breeding programs.