The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 pushed a host of threatened species closer to extinction, including the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart. And as our research released today shows, feral cats posed a second lethal threat to the species in the weeks after the disaster.
The Kangaroo Island dunnart is a mouse-sized marsupial found only on the western end of the island. Bushfires in January 2020 burnt more than 98% of its habitat. The dunnart population was thought to be about 500 before the fire; its current numbers are being surveyed but are thought to have since declined even further.
