To protect Australia’s wildlife, ecologists are poisoning foxes, feral cats and other introduced species. But the toxin used kills slowly and painfully. Why is this allowed?
Australia is famous for its nature. Kangaroos and wombats, platypus and possums, the biodiversity is enormous: the continent is home to well over 150,000 animal, mushroom and plant species – some estimates say half a million. Most of them do not live anywhere else in the world. 87 percent of mammals are endemic, 93 percent of reptiles, 92 percent of plants.