Posted on 06/29/2016 7:57:20 AM PDT by Ketill Frostbeard
The Bramble Cay melomys has become more famous in extinction than it ever was in life. A mouse-like rodent, the melomys amazingly survived on a 3.6 hectare grass-covered cay (a low-lying island in a coral reef) in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef like a ratty Robinson Crusoe for thousands of years. There, it thrived off just a few plant species until human-caused climate change—in the form of rising sea levels and increasing inundations of sea water on the low-lying island—wiped it off the planet.
But, while the extinction has been reported widely, articles have missed an important point: the scientists who uncovered the rodent’s fate had planned to capture individuals and bring them back to the Australian mainland to start a captive breeding programme. They were just too late.
“My colleagues and I were devastated,” Ian Gynther, a Senior Conservation Officer in Queensland’s Department of Environment and Heritage Protection who led the failed rescue mission, said.
“As each day of our comprehensive survey passed without revealing any trace of the animal, we became more and more depressed,” he added.
Short surveys in both 2011 and early 2014 failed to find a single Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola), but Gynther said the team was still optimistic when the left in August of 2014 believing that the failure of the two most recent surveys “was due to the limited trapping effort.”
Instead, they found the cay totally empty of its sole mammal, which was believed to have evolved in isolation from its nearest relative for nearly a million years and was considered the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal.
If they had found any survivors, Gynther said the plan was to create a captive population as “an emergency insurance measure” against extinction. Indeed, the team spent five months obtaining the necessary permissions for captive breeding from Australia’s governmental agencies and various stakeholders as well as creating a plan to hold the species at University of Queensland’s Gatton campus.
As storm surges increased, the Bramble Cay melomys saw its habitat and food sources considerably diminished. Repeated inundations potentially drowned individuals as well. The last of the species vanished forever sometime between 2009 and 2014.
Gynther said scientists were cautious about placing the species in captivity, even though the Bramble Cay melomys had been listed by the IUCN Red List as critically endangered since 1996 and not seen by humans since 2009.
“Captive breeding is an expensive undertaking, requiring a significant commitment of staff, resources and time by the parties involved,” he explained. “This is particularly true for a program that is likely to be required for an indefinite period, as would have been the case for the Bramble Cay melomys.”
But the impacts of climate change on the cay, including repeated storm surges that killed off the melomys’ food sources like the common purslane (Portulaca oleracea), happened quicker than conservationists ever anticipated. And the last Bramble Cay melomy may have been simply swept off the island and drowned in the sea.
“By the time it was apparent that a captive breeding program was required as an urgent conservation action, it was already too late,” Gynther said.
The Bramble Cay melomys was simply gone, washed away by rising seas which now threaten the island’s seabird rookeries and sea turtle nesting beaches
The genetics of the Bramble Cay melomys may be wholly lost as well. Tissue samples were taken of 42 individuals in 1998, but the whereabouts of these samples are currently unknown, though, Gynther and his team are trying to track them down.
The loss of this little island survivor is tragically irreversible, but it could provide a number of lessons for conservationists going forward. Given that many climate change impacts are happening far quicker than scientists anticipated, conservationists may need to consider moving more speedily and aggressively to protect an increasing number of climate-vulnerable species.
“[The extinction] highlights that conservation recovery actions need to be highly responsive, especially where climate change impacts are involved,” Gynther said. He added that controversial actions, such as assisted migration for species, must be considered as climate change continues to batter animals and ecosystems.
Of course, in an age of rising seas, more extreme weather, worsening droughts and polar ice melt, conservationists may also need to become even more vocal about dealing with the underlying cause of climate changes: burning fossil fuels. The longer global society goes without transforming itself, the more extinctions will become inevitable.
“human-caused climate change”
Wow, did I do that ? Did one of you guys do it ? Who did this ?
It must be someone out there who did this. Because I didn’t do it, and I don’t think you guys did it. But they say that humans did this.
So which humans are they talking about ? Who killed this mouse ?
The Holocaust was caused by humans. We know which ones too. doesn’t seem to stop us from growing new socialists.
What “rising sea levels?”
Been to Atlantic City or Virginia Beach at various times in the last 80 years? The ocean is in exactly the same place relative to older buildings as it was 80 years ago.
You can look at the photographic evidence.
Erosion of shorelines by storms and volume capacity changes of smaller bays and rivers (silt accumulation, shifts in bottom layouts) does not equate to AGW. Or even GW.
Those stupid “mouse-like rodents”. I prefer to feed all those non mouse-like rodents to my rodent-eating pet.
They had 13 years and did nothing. This is becoming the liberal mantra. Do nothing and when it is too late blame someone else.
They should have their funding pulled for gross incompetence.
It's all a part of the circle of life. Extinction happens. It's a natural phenomenon. Besides, it was a rat.
Srsly. I bet the tissue samples are “lost” because DNA would prove they are simply the decedents of rats escaped or tossed from ships.
They didn’t go extinct. Slartibartfast picked them up so they could have another go at Norway. Oh, the fjords!
I can’t wait to see all the Facebook memes bemoaning this horrible event to make us believe in global warming was caused by humans...
I’m not worried that the end of the world is coming. I don’t listen to liberal chicken littles.
Adapt or die.
Here is the question, what could puny little Man have done to prevent this?
Man can’t change the Climate (there’s the rub) or lower the Oceans, so the only thing that could have been done to save the Rats is to build a massive Sea Wall surrounding the Island.
Man is the only species on Earth capable of doing that.
“Nearly a million years” and in all that time there was NEVER a storm big enough to flood an island so very tiny? My ass.
When I was in school many years ago, we were taught that species go extinct all the time. Now we will find out that all extinctions from this point on will be due to man-made global warming.
They couldn't get the $$$$$$$$$
I suspect they have the genetic material of this “lost” animal.
I’ve read some rather detailed descriptions of how they plan to bring back the woolly mammoth, and it involves using DNA and a host carrier.
We are on the verge of being able to do this sort of thing, so these animals should not be lost forever, that is if they really cared about them as much as they act like they did.
As for global warming, these folks are nimrods of the highest order.
Could be the birds ate them. Or the turtles. Best save the birds and turtles now since their food source is gone.
more fear-mongering environmentalist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.
** yawns **
A rat! A friggin’rat! good grief...
The biggest tragedy I see here is that it wasn’t the Norwegian brown rat that went extinct.
somebody should take that silly phony photo of a polar bear clinging to the tiniest tip of an iceberg and photoshop this mouse in its place...
...and then send it to Al Gore to watch his head explode.
Grant Money Gone....
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