Environment Department downgrades status of rare, vulnerable and endangered

Have you seen any of these animals now listed as endangered? Many more have been classified as such, while their populations decline in the wild.

Twenty-one SA animal and plant species have been pushed to the brink of extinction in recent years and will now be listed as endangered.

The listings — which rank threatened living things as “rare”, “vulnerable” and the worst “endangered” — have been recommended by the Environment Department and released for expert feedback until August.

The department wants 30 species to be listed as one of the three rankings for the first time.

The little eagle, which is now classed as vulnerable but was not previously listed. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Environment Department expert Jason Higham said, if external experts agreed, the animals which would be newly listed as “endangered” would be; the Kangaroo Island Echidna, Gawler Ranges Short-tailed Grasswren, Red Knot, Australasian Bittern, Australian Painted-snipe, Curlew Sandpiper, Eastern Curlew, Far Eastern Curlew, Kowari, Lesser Sand Plover and Mongolian Plover.

“Changes to the conservation category of species can occur for a variety of reasons, including new knowledge, improved assessments, changes in scientific classification of species, or changes in the numbers or distribution of these species,’’ Mr Higham said.

A mere 14 wild examples of the rarest plant to be listed as endangered — the Woods Well Spyridium — exist in the world, in one roadside pupulation in the Coorong.

There is good and bad news for the Gawler Ranges Short-tailed Grasswren which genetic reasearch has shown is found nowhere else in the world.

The Australian painted snipe will be listed as endangered, up from vulnerable.

The red-necked wallaby was rare but is now populous enough to be unlisted.

But it is this same discovery, and the threat of bushfires, that has put it on the endangered list.

Other species like the Prickly Spear-grass and Yellow Burr-daisy will be de-listed because new populations have been found.

Conversely the Tammar Wallaby population on KI has been identified as the same species as on the mainland and now does not meet any criteria for listing as threatened.

The single population of the Kangaroo Island Echidna is struggling and will now be “endangered”.

The Red Knot bird has suffered a 60 per cent over only three generations.

In the worst example of poulation decline the Great Knot had has its SA numbers cut by 80 per cent over three generations.

Submissions about the status of the plants and animals should be made via email to [e-mail] and comments will be accepted until 16 August 2019.