What Are the Real Threats to Australian Wildlife?

Is Collecting Native Animals Really a Population-Level Risk?

Few topics in Australian wildlife conservation generate as much heat—and as little light—as the collecting of native animals. For decades, the removal of individual reptiles from the wild has been portrayed as a significant conservation threat, often cited as justification for increasingly restrictive statutory regulations. But when the data are examined carefully, a very different picture emerges.

If conservation policy is to be effective, it must be driven by evidence rather than perception. The question worth asking is not whether collecting occurs, but whether it poses a meaningful threat to wildlife populations when compared with the far larger forces acting on Australian ecosystems.

The Difference Between Individual Animals and Populations

A recurring issue in wildlife legislation is an overemphasis on the protection of individual animals, rather than the ecological requirements of species and populations. While the welfare of individual animals is important, conservation outcomes are ultimately measured at the population level—by persistence, recruitment, habitat availability, and long-term viability.

This distinction matters because laws designed primarily to regulate individuals can obscure the much larger drivers of decline affecting Australian wildlife. In the case of reptiles, the available data consistently show that collecting represents a vanishingly small fraction of total mortality.

Quantifying the Impact of Collecting

Estimates of reptile collection across Australia suggest that approximately 40,000 individuals per year are removed from the wild for all purposes combined, including pets, scientific research, and venom extraction. While this number may sound large in isolation, it becomes almost negligible when placed alongside other sources of mortality.

When viewed against national-scale threats, collecting accounts for far less than one hundredth of one percent of annual reptile deaths. In fact, in comparative analyses, collecting contributes roughly 0.0007% of total estimated reptile losses when measured against the five major threats facing Australian reptiles.

In other words, even the complete elimination of legal collecting would make no measurable difference to national reptile population trends.

The Dominant Threats to Australian Reptiles

By contrast, the true drivers of decline are well documented and overwhelming in scale.

Habitat loss and land clearing remain among the most significant threats. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of habitat are cleared each year in Australia, directly removing shelter, breeding sites, and food resources. Estimates suggest that habitat clearing alone accounts for the loss of more than 14 million reptiles annually.

Road mortality is another major contributor, with tens of millions of reptiles killed each year as a result of vehicle strikes. Roads fragment habitat, alter movement patterns, and disproportionately affect slow-moving or basking species.

However, the most devastating impacts come from introduced predators, particularly cats and foxes. Combined, these species are responsible for the deaths of billions of native animals annually, including reptiles. Estimates indicate that cats alone kill more than four billion reptiles each year, while foxes account for well over one billion additional losses.

When placed beside these figures, the impact of collecting is not merely small—it is statistically insignificant.

Why Collecting Persists as a Policy Target

If collecting is such a minor factor, why does it continue to receive disproportionate regulatory attention?

One reason is that collecting is highly visible and easy to regulate. Individual keepers, breeders, and hobbyists are identifiable, licensable, and enforceable. Habitat loss, feral predation, and landscape-scale degradation, by contrast, are complex, politically sensitive, and expensive to address.

Another factor is public perception. Collecting is often framed as exploitative or unnecessary, despite evidence that regulated collecting can coexist with healthy populations. This framing can divert attention away from the systemic drivers of decline that are harder to confront.

Species-Level Responses to Disturbance

Not all reptiles respond to environmental change in the same way. Research comparing threatened and non-threatened species shows that vulnerability is often linked to specialised habitat requirements, ambush feeding strategies, and low reproductive output.

Species such as death adders (Acanthophis spp.), which rely on specific ground cover and ambush tactics, are particularly sensitive to habitat disturbance and competition with feral predators. Their declines are closely tied to land clearing and introduced species, not collecting.

Conversely, some large venomous snakes—such as brown snakes (Pseudonaja) and taipans (Oxyuranus)—have proven remarkably resilient in modified landscapes. These species often benefit from increased rodent populations following land clearing and have large clutch sizes that support rapid recovery. Their success highlights the importance of ecological context, rather than blanket assumptions about human interaction.

Misallocation of Conservation Resources

A major concern raised by conservation researchers is the misdirection of limited funding and regulatory effort. Significant resources are spent managing the smallest threats, while the largest drivers of decline—feral predators, habitat destruction, and landscape fragmentation—remain underfunded.

This imbalance does not reflect ecological reality. Effective conservation requires a shift away from symbolic regulation and toward targeted, outcome-driven management at the landscape scale.

The Role of Regulated Collecting

None of this suggests that collecting should be unregulated. Licensing, quotas, and ethical standards remain essential. However, when properly managed, collecting can coexist with conservation goals and may even support them through education, captive breeding, scientific research, and public engagement.

Importantly, responsible collectors are often among the most knowledgeable advocates for habitat protection and species conservation. Excluding them from the conservation conversation risks losing valuable expertise and community support.

Reframing the Debate

The evidence is clear: collecting native animals is not a meaningful threat to Australian wildlife populations. The real threats are habitat loss, feral predators, road mortality, and broad-scale environmental degradation.

If conservation policy is to succeed, it must be grounded in data rather than perception, and it must focus on the factors that actually determine species survival. Continuing to prioritise minor, highly visible activities over catastrophic, landscape-scale impacts does little to protect Australia’s unique fauna.

The challenge moving forward is not to tighten controls on the smallest threats, but to confront the largest ones with honesty, courage, and evidence-based action.

Reference

This article was informed by data and discussion presented in:

Murchison, P. Australia’s Dangerous Snakes.