Picking through the bones of the past to resurrect a species

As civilisation encroaches further into the Australian bushland, many native rodents are facing a tough battle for survival.

The opening up of land over the past 100 years has seen Australia's native rodent populations devastated by feral cats and foxes, which has led to extinction in some areas.

In this vodcast, CSIRO's Dr Fred Ford searches a deep cave for ancient rodent bones in an effort to identify species suitable for reintroduction to a newly developed protected woodland sanctuary where cats and foxes are definitely not welcome.

Dr Fred Ford's work is part of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities-funded Taxonomy Research & Information Network (TRIN). TRIN is a multi-disciplinary collaborative research program including accelerating discovery, documentation and delivery of information to support conservation, management and sustainable use of Australia's biota.

For more information about the Taxonomy Research & Information Network (TRIN) http://www.taxonomy.org.au

For more CSIROvods go to http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Multimedia/CSIROvod.aspx

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• CSIRO
• sustainable
• ecosystem
• extinction
• conservation
• native species
• fossils
• bones
• rats
• mice
• caves
• owls
• feral animals
• box-gum woodland
• flora and fauna
• ACT
• Australia