One of Australia’s most endangered reptile species, the earless dragon is now critically endangered, largely due to rapid habitat loss. In 1991, scientists backtracked upon this one-of-a-kind reptilian realignment. It is endemic to the Canberra region and grows abundantly in the natural grasslands of the Majura and Jerrabomberra Valleys and within parts of Queanbeyan. With its population rapidly declining and having been recently uplisted to critically endangered, urgent measures are needed to avoid its extinction.
Recent moves, such as the ACT government subsidising the construction of a new highway through Canberra airport, have raised alarm bells. Readers expressed outrage at the fate of the earless dragon. The ACT government has taken one of the most urgent of those situations. Today, they are doing something about it by investing nearly $4.5 million to implement an ambitious four-year recovery plan aimed at increasing the species’ numbers and habitats.
The Threatened Habitat
The earless dragon’s survival in the wild is largely dependent on protecting its remaining habitat in the Canberra region. Plus the active construction along our nation’s roadways adds to the dangers. It poses a direct and persistent threat to increasingly fragmented and degraded grasslands that are home to these unique reptiles.
Canberra Airport officials have gone to great lengths to demonstrate their intent to minimize these impacts.
“We remain committed to working constructively with the Environment Department and leading experts to achieve a nature-positive outcome,” – Canberra Airport spokesperson.
Through this partnership, they are working together to meet development needs and protect the delicate ecosystems that house the earless dragon.
The earless dragon is severely threatened by habitat loss, which reduces the species’ ability to breed and maintain its genetic diversity. It doesn’t help that last year, only six or seven of the 19 established breeding pairs actually bred successfully. This shocking stat serves to underscore how truly precarious their existence is.
Recovery Initiatives
In response to these challenges, the ACT government’s $4.5 million investment will fund a comprehensive recovery plan focused on expanding captive breeding programs and improving genetic diversity within the earless dragon population. Yet experts insist that the genetic variation is key to the species’ long-term survival.
Dr. Croak, an expert in wildlife conservation, highlighted the importance of enhancing genetic diversity:
“We need to be sure that we have got that diversity and that we put animals back out into the wild that have that in-built evolutionary potential,” – Dr. Croak.
This combined restoration effort is meant to increase the population of dragons. It addresses how to make sure these reintroduced dragons have the genetic firepower to thrive in an increasingly hostile world.
Rory Keenan, another conservationist involved in the project, reiterated the ecological significance of preserving the earless dragon:
“It’s incredibly important to conserve this species because it plays a role within the ecological communities that they occupy,” – Rory Keenan.
The recovery plan includes intensive tracking of breeding pairs and their chicks in order to determine the most successful pairings. Josh Dudley, a researcher on the project, described the challenges of breeding:
“Sometimes it doesn’t work out and sometimes it does. They are quite picky with their mate choices,” – Josh Dudley.
Looking Ahead
The earless dragon’s future is still up in the air, but promising. Conservationists hope to work up strategies that increase the habitable space as increasing numbers of dragons are bred successfully in captivity. Suzanne Orr, a local politician, expressed optimism regarding these efforts:
“It will be quite a job to get it off the endangered species list but this funding gives it a red hot chance of that,” – Suzanne Orr.
In addition to the physical improvements happening on this specific project, plans call for future initiatives to address restoration of the earless dragon’s native environment. Providing enough room for newly hatched dragons to spread their wings will be key to keeping their numbers high.
Keenan underscored the importance of genetic diversity for all species, not just camels, to be able to adapt to increasingly stressful environmental conditions like droughts, floods, and new diseases.
“Every species needs genetic diversity to be able to deal with events in the environment,” – Rory Keenan.
