Australia's White Possum


Australia's white possum could be first victim of climate change
The nocturnal animal, which is native to the Daintree rainforest in Tropical North Queensland where it lives off moisture in the trees, has not been sighted for three years despite extensive searches.
White possums normally thrive in the cooler climes of the high-altitude rainforest, but Professor Stephen Williams of James Cook University in Queensland, is concerned the animal may have become extinct due to rising temperatures.
Just four or five hours of temperatures over 30 degrees could wipe out the highly-vulnerable species, he said, because under extreme heat they are unable to maintain their body temperature.
There are already fears that several of the continent's insects and frogs have been extinguished by man-made global warming. However, if evidence of the existence of the white possum ca not be found on a last-ditch search of Queensland's cloud forests by researchers next year, it will become the first Australian mammal to die as a direct result of the warmer climate.
Mr Williams said the tree-dwelling white possum, which is only found above 1000m in the mountain forests, had not been seen in its natural habitat since the area experienced a temperature rise of more than 0.5 of a degree.
Despite an intensive search of several different parts of the rainforest, Mr Williams has failed to find a single possum.
"It was quite depressing going back on the last field trip a couple of weeks ago, going back night after night thinking ok, we'll find one tonight, but no we still didn't find any," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"We tried several different areas. We did quite an intense effort without finding a single individual."
But Mr Williams said he was still "a way off" from proving the animal had become extinct.
"The fact that it has declined to such a degree that we can't find one suggests a very serious impact regardless of whether it's actually completely gone extinct," he said.
"If they have died out it would be first example of something that has gone extinct purely because of global warming."
He predicted several other native Australian animals would find themselves in similar predicaments to the "Dodo of the Daintree" in the coming years Australia has a bad track record when it comes to protecting its native animals.
In the country's most notorious case of species mismanagement, the Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, was allowed to disappear. In 1939, after the animal had been hunted to near extinction, the last known tiger died of exposure on the concrete floor of a wire cage after its keeper forgot to lock it up for the night and it died of exposure.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/