When European sailors discovered “large rats” on a tiny island in the Great Barrier Reef, they amused themselves by shooting the animals with bows and arrows. Back then, there were at least several hundred Bramble Cay melomys on the island. Now, the rodents are the first mammal species to go extinct due to human-caused climate change.
A new report, co-authored by Natalie Waller and Luke Leung from the University of Queensland, indicates that rising sea levels destroyed 97 percent melomys’ habitat and much of their food supply, and likely drowned many of them. The island is only about 10 feet above sea level, making it especially susceptible to inundations. And, since the cay is only about the size of a football field, the creatures were unable to escape the flooding.
As the earth becomes warmer, ice melts and sea water expands, causing sea levels to rise. Sea levels have risen globally about 7.5 inches in the last century.
“For low-lying islands like Bramble Cay, the destructive effects of extreme water levels resulting from severe meteorological events are compounded by the impacts from anthropogenic climate change-driven sea-level rise,” Waller and Leung wrote in the report.
The last recorded sighting of the melomys, which is the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef, was in 2009. After a brief survey of the island in March 2014 failed to detect any of these animals, an extensive investigation through August and September in 2014 revealed no more melomys were alive on the island.
Leung said he and the researchers delayed releasing their report because they wanted to be absolutely certain the Bramble Cay melomys was the first mammal to go extinct due to human-cause climate change.
While the report recommends the melomys are declared extinct in Australian and state legislation, it suggests listing them as “Possibly Extinct” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List. There is a slight possibility another population of these melomys live in Papua New Guinea.
Climate scientists say that the Bramble Cay melomys is just the beginning of a trend of extinctions due to climate change.
“Certainly, extinction and climatic change has gone hand in hand throughout the history of the world,” John White, an ecologist from Deakin University in Australia, told the Guardian. “So, if this is one of the first, it is more than likely not going to be the last.”
6 Ways Climate Change Threw The Animal World Into Disarray This YearClimate by CREDIT: AP Photo Some of climate change’s most easy-to-spot impacts have, historically, been in the animal…thinkprogress.orgIn the 1990s, scientists believed rising temperatures and greater aridity due to human-caused climate change resulted in the extinction of the golden toad, although researchers are now considering other possible causes.
According to a 2015 study, one in six species could go extinct if global warming continues along its current trajectory to 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. However, even if global warming only reaches the 2 degree Celsius threshold agreed upon in the Paris climate agreement, one in 20 species could become extinct.
Animals native to Australia and New Zealand are particularly vulnerable, as they have less space available to migrate to in order to cope with the effects of climate change, just like the Bramble Cay melomys. Other animals that depend on narrow temperature ranges or specific habitats in order to survive are also highly at risk.
“I think [the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys] is significant because it illustrates how the human-caused extinction process works in real time,” Anthony D. Barnosky, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the New York Times.
Rachel Cain is an intern at ThinkProgress.