Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

3 – The extent and adequacy of monitoring for Australian threatened mammal species^37

and publication) rather than invest effort in maintaining the continuity of long-
term monitoring programs; (5) there is no dedicated funding stream for
monitoring and, with limited funding, many agencies prefer to prioritise
management actions rather than monitoring; and (6) many Australian mammals
are simply very difficult and expensive to monitor. Furthermore, even where
monitoring of threatened mammal species is occurring, there tends to be little
complementary monitoring of putative threat factors or management effectiveness,
meaning that where monitoring reports trends in mammal populations, these
trends may be difficult to explain, or managers may have a limited evidence base
from which to respond (Wayne et al. 2017). Many of these issues have been
identified previously as contributing to the paucity of adequate and long-term
biodiversity monitoring programs in Australia and elsewhere (Lindenmayer and
Gibbons 2012).
The insufficiency of this monitoring activity will result in suboptimal
conservation outcomes because: management resources will not necessarily target
the main threats or be directed to the species needing most remedial attention; the
listing of threatened species will be inaccurate or inadequate; reporting of
management effectiveness (and hence ongoing resourcing and adaptive
management) will be impaired; and the community in general will be largely
unaware of the deteriorating fate of much of our nationally and globally significant
biodiversity.
We consider that there are three priority needs to enhance monitoring for
Australian mammal species. First, monitoring needs to be seen as an integral
component of any conservation management activity, and to provide the
mechanism to report on, and help to continually enhance, that management. An
appropriate level of funding should be built into all conservation management

Scientific name Common name

Conservation status Summed

monitoring

MAP EPBC Act IUCN score

Pseudomys oralis Hastings River mouse VU EN VU 26

Pseudomys shortridgei Heath mouse NT EN NT 18

Zyzomys maini Arnhem rock-rat VU VU VU 25

Zyzomys palatalis Carpentarian rock-rat CR EN CR 24

Zyzomys pedunculatus Central rock-rat CR EN CR 29

Xeromys myoides Water mouse VU VU VU 21

Uromys hadrourus Pygmy white-tailed

rat

NT NT 0

Rattus tunneyi tunneyi Pale field-rat (NW

Australia)

NT 18

Canis familiaris [dingo] Dingo NT 17