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Gump, the last known Christmas Island forest skink

Broadcast United News Desk
Gump, the last known Christmas Island forest skink

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Some of the most memorable and evocative images of Australian wildlife include Black and white photo of the last thylacinedying alone in Hobart Zoo, is a reminder that we are only one step away from stopping extinction.

The loss is also an important lesson in the serious consequences of acting too slowly. The Tasmanian tiger at Hobart Zoo died just two months after the species was finally granted protected status.

Last year we wrote Last known Christmas Island forest skinkan ordinary individual affectionately known as Gump. Although Gump may not know her own identity, she is in a desperate situation, hoping to survive long enough to meet a mate and save her species. But this hope is fading.

Despite great efforts to search for another forest skink on Christmas Island, nothing was found.

Gump died alone on May 31, 2014. Like the thylacine, she barely outlived the mechanisms that protected her, dying less than five months after she was killed. Listed as endangered species in Australia.

Sad precedent: The thylacine was another species whose population was reduced to just one individual in captivity, which eventually died.
National Archives of Australia/Wikimedia Commons

Sudden decline

Until the late 1990s, forest skinks were common and widespread on Christmas Island. Their numbers have since declined dramatically and they are now extinct. This is a dramatic disappearance, but not entirely surprising, as forest skinks experienced a similar pattern of decline and extinction before this (2009). Christmas Island WingsThe skinks are not unique among the island’s native reptiles – most of them show a similar pattern of decline.

We consider Gump’s death significant because it could mark the extinction of her species. If so, it would be the first native Australian reptile known to go extinct since European colonization—a most unwelcome distinction. (Unlike individual deaths, extinction is hard to prove. After all, there are optimists who believe the thylacine is still alive. For the forest skink, the trajectory of population declines and the fruitlessness of dedicated searches provide plausible reasons to speculate extinction, although it may be years before that conclusion is officially recognized. Of course, we hope to be proven wrong.)

They are almost officially extinct, and the outlook is bleak.
Hal Cogger/Provided

Lessons and Legacy

The death of Gump may be dismissed as a minor piece of bad news and quickly forgotten. But forest skinks existed long before modern humans left Africa, so their extinction on our watch is no small matter. We should treat this loss with deep respect and work to learn lessons to prevent similar losses in the future.

These are the legacies we seek from Forrest Gump’s life and death:

First, we should acknowledge that species extinction is an unwelcome outcome, often caused by ecological factors but also, in recent years, extinction has been exacerbated by deliberate human action or inaction. In most cases, species extinction can be seen as a manifestation of policy and management failures, oversights, or missed opportunities.

In our society, similar cases, such as unexplained deaths or catastrophic government failures, trigger a coroner’s inquest. It is widely believed that such inquests are a good way to learn lessons and change practices, helping to avoid future failures. Inquiries also help to assign responsibility and explain negative events to the public.

An inquiry – albeit a more modest one than a coroner’s inquest – is an appropriate response to any extinction event. The putative first extinction of an Australian reptile species will set a valuable precedent: how can it be avoided, and what lessons can we learn from it?

Second, the Australian government has shown a reassuring concern for the protection of endangered species. It has appointed the first Endangered Species Commissionerand Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt Recent efforts to prevent further extinction of Australian mammals.

We urge that the extinction of the Christmas Island forest skink reinforce this public statement and make it clear that this extinction is significant and deeply regrettable. The government should clearly seek to avoid future preventable extinctions (a commitment already made through Millennium Development Goals), and should commit to implementing more effective and successful strategies to protect Australia’s threatened species (and biodiversity).

Gump’s legacy may serve as a new impetus to prevent more species from going extinct.
Director of National Parks/Provided

Third, it is no coincidence that two endemic vertebrate species have become extinct on Christmas Island in the past decade and that many other native species are declining, even though much of the island is National Park.

The extraordinary natural value of Christmas Island is not commensurate with the resources it manages, and its visibility in the national mind is low. The island meets the eligibility criteria for World Heritage status, and it is time for the government to apply for World Heritage listing.

A fourth legacy of hope is a so far successful captive breeding program for two other Christmas Island species that would otherwise have suffered the same fate as Gump: the endemic Blue-tailed Skink and Lister Gecko.

This is an admirable achievement. But it is a half-measure at best, because a species represented only by individuals in cages becomes a fraud. We urge the government to fully commit to Current proposed conservation plans for Christmas Island The initiative aims to eliminate or effectively control major threats such as introduced black rats, feral cats, yellow crazy ants, giant centipedes and wolf snakes, allowing these species to return to their natural habitats.

Fifth, the extermination was largely carried out out of public view. 2012 Scientific Papersthe few reports documenting declines in Christmas Island forest skinks are not easy to obtain.

There is a biodiversity monitoring program on the island (which is laudable), but the results of this monitoring are not regularly reported or explained to the public. Our society deserves to be warned of impending and irreversible losses, and to know when these losses have been avoided through good management.

I hope Forrest Gump didn’t die in vain.
Hal Cogger/Provided

This is not uncommon: for most of Australia’s threatened species, reliable information on population trends is difficult or impossible to find. This makes it difficult to prioritise management efforts, management responses can be initiated too late, and severely limits public awareness of conservation issues. We recommend the development of a National Biodiversity Monitoring Program to provide the public with ready access to information on trends for threatened and other species.

It’s been 78 years since the last thylacine died. Our photos of Australia’s extinct animals are now in color, not black and white. But has anything else improved? We hope so.

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