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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Contents Vol 31(3)

Who’s been lost from the landscape? Identifying missing terrestrial fauna to inform urban rewilding

Mareshell Wauchope https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1414-8925 A * , Patrick B. Finnerty https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5762-6272 A , Jennifer C. Pierson B , Peter B. Banks A , Alexandra J. R. Carthey C and Thomas M. Newsome A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.

B Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Perth, WA, Australia.

C School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW, Australia.

* Correspondence to: mwauchope@sydney.edu.au

Handling Editor: Mike Calver

Pacific Conservation Biology 31, PC24096 https://doi.org/10.1071/PC24096
Submitted: 6 December 2024  Accepted: 21 April 2025  Published: 12 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context

Urbanisation has driven native species declines and local extinctions, eroding ecological processes. However, urban areas with remnant native vegetation patches may offer opportunities for native wildlife rewilding.

Aims

We sought to identify potential urban rewilding candidates across a target landscape. We then examined their ecological traits to understand if those traits were shared by rewilding candidate species.

Methods

We developed and applied a decision framework to occurrence records of terrestrial, non-volant mammals and reptiles to identify two status groups: (1) extant; and (2) rewilding candidates. Data on four ecological traits (diet, size, habit, and habitat) were then analysed using multivariate statistics.

Key results

We identified 39 mammal and 47 reptile species historically present, with up to 62% of mammals and 93% of reptiles persisting since 2000. Eighteen species were categorised as locally missing, 11 of which are threatened. Two families (Canidae and Potoridae) were found to be locally extinct. Foraging habit (P-value = 0.047) and diet breadth (P-value = 0.024) were significantly different between our status groups.

Conclusions

Locally missing and/or declined species represent potential urban rewilding candidates with broadest geographic applicability in patchy urban contexts, and align with a rewilding goal to restore pre-disturbance assemblages. In an urban context, where the list of species lost might be high, additional factors require consideration to aid rewilding candidate prioritisation in resource constrained environments.

Implications

The decision framework efficiently pinpointed an initial suite of urban rewilding candidates. This framework can be applied by urban conservation managers. Trait analyses highlighted vulnerabilities critical to informing development of successful urban rewilding strategies.

Keywords: Atlas occurrence data, biodiversity loss, decision framework, mammals, reptiles, urbanisation, urban rewilding.

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