3 – The extent and adequacy of monitoring for Australian threatened mammal species^23semi-arid areas, where populations may show marked f luctuations in response to
seasonal conditions, rendering it difficult to decipher long-term trends (Dickman
et al. 2014; Chapter 21).
A recent assessment of the conservation status of Australian mammals
(Woinarski et al. 2014) sought to assess the extent of monitoring, and interpret
monitoring results, for all taxa that were listed as threatened, Near Threatened or
Data Deficient by the IUCN, listed as threatened under the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or that may now be eligible for
these conservation status categories. Our interest in this monitoring was
primarily related to the evidence it provided on rate of decline – a parameter
used to assess whether a species is eligible for listing, and if so, at what
threatened status. The assessment of the extent and adequacy of monitoring was
based on a substantial review of the available published and unpublished
literature, and communications with all State and Territory conservation
agencies and >200 experts studying and managing these mammal taxa. The
evaluation framework of nine metrics described in Chapter 2 were used for
assessment of the adequacy of monitoring programs. This chapter reports on that
assessment, with focus particularly on the 167 extant native terrestrial mammal
taxa (115 species and 52 subspecies) that are clearly not Least Concern (compared
with 143 terrestrial mammal taxa that were clearly Least Concern and hence not
considered further here).
Although the metrics of this evaluation framework, and most monitoring
programs, are based on formal protocols for the quantitative assessment of
abundance, much information on the changing status of Australian terrestrial
mammals has also been derived from the recording and interpretation of
Indigenous knowledge. This source of information on changing status is often less
quantitatively precise than more scientifically based monitoring, but often has a
valuable and unique perspective, based on decades of observations and, collectively
across many sites, may provide information on changing status of mammals over
very extensive areas (Burbidge et al. 1988; Ziembicki et al. 2013). This information
source has proven particularly valuable for evidence about mammal species that
disappeared in the mid-20th century, leaving otherwise remarkably little trace of
their existence or ecology (Burbidge et al. 1988).
Another issue relevant to any monitoring program is the context provided by a
baseline and desired state: without such consideration, monitoring may be simply a
passive record of change. Given the major upheavals since European settlement in
the native mammal fauna of many regions, it is difficult to define a baseline
reference point. However, many recent studies using sub-fossil information and/or
Indigenous knowledge have demonstrated that the mammal baseline in many
areas is far more markedly different to the current fauna than previously realised
(Bilney 2014). In effect, such baselines may mark a ‘year zero’ in monitoring, and in