Eric Vanderduys and April Reside write in The Conversation (4.3.16) about the threats posed to native bird species by the potential expansion of coal mining in central Queensland.
‘Australia has a bad record for losing species, and more are likely to follow: more than 1,700 species of animals and plants are listed by the Australian government as being seriously threatened.
‘The extinction of a species usually comes about from several interacting threats, and the extinction process usually starts with losing a few populations, or a particular subspecies, until eventually there are only a few individuals remaining.
‘The southern black-throated finch, Poephila cincta cincta, is a bird that has become endangered mostly through land modified by agriculture, resulting in the loss of around 80% of its former range.
‘Our research, published in PLoS ONE, shows that more than half of the remaining finch habitat is potentially subject to mining development.’