Australia’s bush fire disaster that has triggered heat waves and also drought is going to have adverse impact on the animal world with a new study showing that the climate change is leading platypus to extinction.
Platypus is largely found in Eastern Australia and Tasmania. Details about the species such as its distribution and abundance are not known much because of its secretive nature. The study has been conducted by the UNSW Sydney’s centre for Ecosystem science. The study has been published in Biological Conservation. In the study, the researchers examined the threat caused to Platypus such as drought, land clearing, water resources development and climate change.
Lead author of the study Giland Bino said that there was an urgent need for assessing a conservation mechanism, the risks involved and the and the importance to management the conservation mechanism for saving Platypus from getting extinct.
The study reports that the population of platypus has almost halved because of land clearing. It also reported that the current dry spell was disastrous to the species.
IT has to be seen that the International Union for Conservation of Nature had recently downgraded the status of Platypus conservation to “Near Threatened”. However, it has not been listed in Australia where it is endangered.
UNSW director and Co-Author Richard Kingsford said it was unfortunate that Platypus lived in areas that were under threat from human development. He said that dams could stop the movement of Platypus, agriculture could destroy the burrows and fishing gear and other devices could kill the species.
