Well Done Us: The 1st Mammal Species Has Been Wiped Out By Climate Change

You’ve probably never seen the kinda cute, whiskered rat known as a Bramble Cay melomys – and now you never will.

In a new report published by the University of Queensland, researchers have confirmed the mammal – whose only known habitat was a 340m long and 150m wide patch of coral just off the Great Barrier Reef – is the first (documented) victim of human-induced climate change.

The poor lil’ guys were last seen in 2009 and, after an extensive search that involved laying 150 traps for six nights in 2014, its status has been changed from “endangered” to “extinct”. 

Considered the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef, the melomys essentially drowned by gradually rising sea levels; seawater claimed about 97% of its native habitat in just about a decade, with vegetation cover falling from 2.2ha in 2004 to just 0.065ha in 2014.

“For low-lying islands like Bramble Cay, the destructive effects of extreme water levels resulting from severe meteorological events are compounded by the impacts from anthropogenic climate change-driven sea-level rise,” the authors said in their report, posted to the QLD government site.

Because extinction is bloody irreversible, the government has pointed out no further attempts at recovery of the species can be undertaken.

The first mammal extinction at our hands, but definitely not the last.