Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

6 – The extent and adequacy of monitoring for Australian threatened reptile species^79

translocation (Read et al. 2011), one recent extinction and two recent cases of
extinction in the wild (Andrew et al. in press). Some monitoring programs also
indicate severe deterioration in particular demographic factors, including
unsustainably low rates of reproductive success (Fielder et al. 2015), and marked
decline in genetic heterogeneity (Dubey and Shine 2010). For a substantial suite of
threatened reptile species associated closely with particular habitats that are
currently being cleared at a high rate (notably temperate grasslands of south-eastern
Australia and brigalow woodlands of central Queensland), that rate of habitat loss
provides compelling indirect evidence of likely very substantial declines in
conservation status for those species (Richardson 2008). Such declines inferred from
habitat loss have been corroborated in the few cases where populations of some
species have also been monitored directly (Dimond et al. 2012).
The lack of, or limited, monitoring for most threatened reptile species is a major
impediment to conservation recovery. Without adequate monitoring, the impacts of

Species Common name

Conservation status Summed

monitoring

EPBC Act IUCN score

Liopholis slateri slateri Slater’s skink, floodplain skink EN 22

Nangura spinosa Nangur spiny skink CR 33

Oligosoma lichenigera Lord Howe Island skink VU VU 29

Tiliqua adelaidensis Pygmy blue-tongue lizard,

Adelaide blue-tongue lizard

EN EN 34

Ramphotyphlops exocoeti Christmas Island blind snake VU VU 0

Aspidites ramsayi Woma EN 10

Liasis olivaceus barroni Olive python (Pilbara

subspecies)

VU 0

Acanthophis hawkei Plains death adder VU 30

Austrelaps labialis Dwarf copperhead VU 0

Denisonia maculata Ornamental snake VU VU 0

Furina dunmalli Dunmall’s snake VU VU 0

Hoplocephalus bungaroides Broad-headed snake VU VU 29

Notechis scutatus ater Krefft’s tiger snake (Flinders

Ranges)

VU 0

Paroplocephalus atriceps Lake Cronin snake VU 0

Aipysurus apraefrontalis Short-nosed sea snake CR CR 26

Aipysurus foliosquama Leaf-scaled sea snake CR CR 26

Aipysurus fuscus Dusky sea snake, Timor reef

snake

EN 24

*Monitoring for these two species, both extinct in the wild, is now confined to complete counts of captive breeding populations.