Funding towards Shark Bay mouse recovery plan

A 10-year recovery plan to bring the Shark Bay Mouse back from the brink of extinction has received a $52,000 boost. 

Environment Minister Jim McGinty said the Federal Government had provided the funds to the Department of Conservation and Land Management as part of $1.2 million allocated to Western Australia under the Commonwealth's Endangered Species program. 

"The mouse is found only on Bernier Island, in Shark Bay, and is one of Australia's most threatened mammals," Mr McGinty said. 

"It is the only mammal in Australia confined to a single island." 

CALM's recovery plan aims to establish two additional populations of the Shark Bay mouse on the mainland and on another island. 

Mr McGinty said that research on the distribution and biology of the Shark Bay mouse - which must be done before any translocations were undertaken - was currently underway. 

Introduced predators, rabbits and goats would have also to be eradicated from the proposed release sites. 

"Before European settlement, the Shark Bay mouse occupied a big part of mainland Australia, from North-West Cape to Alice Springs and south to the Nullarbor Plain," Mr McGinty said. 

"Predators such as feral cats and the destruction of their shallow burrows by stock trampling is thought to have played a major role in their decline. 

"WA has about 40 per cent of Australia's endangered species and we must do all we can to protect them." 

Mr McGinty said CALM had pioneered broadscale methods for fox control and was currently implementing 10 recovery plans for endangered species.

During a visit to Perth earlier this week, Federal Environment Minister Ros Kelly congratulated the Western Australian Government for its trail-blazing efforts in endangered species work.