Selfie faves slow to rebound after fires
Behind the smile of what appears to be the world’s happiest animal is a greater vulnerability than ever imagined.
A study has shown that quokkas, the small kangaroo-like species beloved by selfie-takers, have been desperately slow to recover in number after fires swept through their shrinking habitat in Australia’s southwest.
The forests that quokkas, already at critically low numbers, prefer are susceptible not only to fires but to other effects of a warming climate.
‘‘This really dense habitat that they rely on, that’s going to probably become more sparse because the plants can’t adapt to this drying climate’’, said Ashleigh Chauvin, an ecologist and quokka researcher.
Her study, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and the state government of Western Australia, has measured how long the animals take to rebuild their numbers after large fires.
Instead of the three years that most wildlife experts expected, the study shows that quokka populations can take 13 years to rebuild the numbers that existed before their habitats were razed.
When flames roared through 98,000 hectares near Northcliffe, 320 kilometres south of Perth, in 2015, it was estimated that the forest was home to 600 quokkas. A year later, just 39 remained. Surveys this year have shown that the population is still less
than half what it was.
Projections indicate that it may take until 2028 for the quokkas to rebuild their population. Another big blaze could set that back.
It is estimated that there may be as few as 7500 adult quokkas left in the wild, most of them heavily protected on Rottnest Island, off Perth.
Chauvin said one of the biggest lessons from the study was the absence
of habitat to which the remaining mainland quokkas could escape when fire struck. The Northcliffe fire had shown that ‘‘there’s nowhere to run’’, she said.
Preserving and building up the population of 3500 mainland quokkas is crucial, because their genes are more diverse than those in the larger Rottnest population, which has adapted to the island’s dry environment.