The Vanishing Wild

‘I’m listening for a ghost. Bright green and yellow, with a tail striped like a bumble-bee, it crouches in wait as the sun sinks below the escarpment...’

Australia is a country celebrated for its wildlife, yet native species are in crisis. In the last 200 years, Australia has lost more biodiversity than any other developed nation.

In this book, award-winning science writer Justine E. Hausheer encounters pygmy possums that live high in the Snowy Mountains, hears the booming calls of bitterns from their adopted home in the Riverina’s rice fields, crouches after dark in the spinifex grasslands listening for the elusive night parrot and meets adorable fat-tailed dunnarts who might hold the answers to reviving the Tasmanian tiger.

The Vanishing Wild immerses us in the harsh reality of the extinction crisis – and shows us the future of conservation and what can be done to save Australia’s native species.

‘Australia’s wildlife is iconic, but its list of threatened species has only ever got longer. With her engaging and impassioned accounts, Justine Hausheer takes readers with her as she visits conservationists in the field and lab working tirelessly to save a series of incredible animals from extinction, while the world waits for politicians to take the environment seriously.’ – Jack Ashby, author of Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals

‘A lively and engaging account of Australia’s most compelling wildlife conservation challenges. Justine Hausheer shares stories of lost and vanishing birds, mammals and reptiles – along with the desperate hope and determination of those working so hard to save them.’ – Danielle Clode, author of The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature

‘Extinction equates to a silencing of nature. Justine Hausheer beautifully gives voice both to the animals on the precipice as well as those dedicated to bringing them back.’ – Sean Dooley, BirdLife Australia

‘Riveting, deeply alarming, shocking yet hopeful. Written in a way that encourages curiosity and engagement, full of impossible-to-forget-or-unlearn scenes and entangled quandaries, tragic and timely, a vitally important contribution to popular science, essential for anyone who wants to understand Australia’s conservation dilemmas.’ – Darryl Jones, author of Curlews on Vulture Street: Cities, Birds, People and Me

About the Author

Justine E. Hausheer is a science writer for the Nature Conservancy. Her favourite stories take her into the field, where she’s followed logging elephants through Myanmar, surveyed for sea cucumbers in Manus, and waded into outback waterholes. Her stories have won awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America and have been featured in the Best Australian Science Writing anthology. She holds a master’s degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University. She now lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.