‘First climate change extinction’ experts say as rodent that lived on Great Barrier Reef island vanishes due to rising sea level
The rodent joined the extinct list after none were spotted for a decade upon their only island home
A RODENT that lived on a Great Barrier Reef island has become the first climate change extinction as rising sea levels swallow its home, experts say.
The Australian government announced the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys today.
The move to the extinct list by the environment ministry makes the little creature the first mammal believed to have been totally wiped out as a result of climate change.
The rat-like rodent has not been seen now for a decade, and lived only on the small and sandy Bramble Cay island - a tiny Torres Strait island near Papua New Guinea .
TEN YEARS WITHOUT A SIGHTING
Researchers from Queensland said the extinction was almost certainly due to repeated ocean inundation, which had resulted in dramatic habitat loss.
With no sightings for such a long period, the declaration was expected.
It was our responsibility to make sure it persisted. And we failed.
The federal policy director for the Wilderness Society, Tim Beshara
The federal policy director for the Wilderness Society, Tim Beshara, told the Herald: “The Bramble Cay melomys was a little brown rat, but it was our little brown rat and it was our responsibility to make sure it persisted. And we failed."
Available data on sea-level rise and weather events in the Torres Strait region “point to human-induced climate change being the root cause of the loss of the Bramble Cay melomys”, a study released in 2016 said.
The Melomys rubicola, considered the Great Barrier Reef's only endemic mammal species, was first discovered on the cay in 1845.
Europeans were known to shoot the largish rodents for sport.
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