Main conservation threats to Australia’s vulnerable reptiles are invasive species & climate change.

Australia’s unique reptiles – including lizards and snakes – face severe threats from invasive species and climate change, with 7% of them threatened with extinction, reveals the latest update of The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, published today (05/07/2018). The Red List now includes 975 Australian reptile species – almost all of Australia’s reptiles, the majority of them endemic to the continent. 


Key points:

• A 1°C increase in temperature is likely to result in a loss of 50% of the population of some Australian reptiles. 
• Invasive species are the main threat to the survival of over half of these threatened reptiles.
• Cats alone are estimated to kill about 600 million reptiles each year.

Check back here for articles on neutralising your carbon footprint and implementing safe and humane management of  invasive species to conserve Australian native species.

Note: IUCN Red List now includes 93,577 species, of which 26,197 are threatened with extinction. More information from the original article here. 

---