Yakka Skink Population Thrives in Charleville After Fencing Project

A concerted conservation effort in Charleville has yielded promising results for the yakka skink, a species considered at risk of extinction. A University of Southern Queensland PhD candidate, Stephen Peck, has been monitoring the population in the area and reports a significant increase in numbers following the installation of protective fences.

"We're seeing an increase in all the age cohorts, which is really, really pleasing," Mr Peck said. The yakka skink, known for its social behavior, lives in family groups typically consisting of a non-related adult pair and multiple generations of offspring.

The species' tendency to stay within a small area makes it vulnerable to introduced predators and land clearing. However, its predictable nature has also made it easier to protect. Three years ago, Mr Peck led a project to build fences around several yakka skink habitats in Charleville, and he has continued to monitor the individuals, recognizable by their unique chin patterns.

"At the unfenced sites I've been trapping at this morning, I've been catching one or two. And here, in one of the fenced sites, I've caught 12 skinks," he said. The four fenced sites now have an estimated population of 28, up from about 10. The fences exclude introduced predators like cats and foxes but still allow natural predators like snakes and birds to move through.

Recently, Mr Peck noticed some skinks from inside the enclosures had established themselves outside the fenced area after growing to a small adult size of about 400 millimeters long. "I think the large adults are probably just a little bit too big for cats," he said.

"I now have four colonies that have been set up from animals that have been born and matured inside the fence." Mr Peck has researched the yakka skink since 2008 and hopes that there will eventually be enough skinks reproducing to keep up with predation.

"We can't fence every site in Queensland, that's an unachievable goal," he said. "If we can fence some sites and get animals to survive and disperse and set up new colonies, we can maintain the species in the landscape." He said three further sites in Charleville had recently been fenced.

Conservation Efforts

Monash ecologist David Chapple said Mr Peck's research demonstrated the significance of threat management on a local scale. "Ideally, what you'd want is the more range-wide reduction of the threats to the species, which I guess is the ultimate goal that we're moving towards," Professor Chapple said.

He said the conservation status of Australian reptiles had declined, with 127 now believed to be threatened. Western Queensland remained a priority area for discovering and studying new species that were likely to be threatened.

"We're dealing with these large knowledge gaps, species that occur in remote and hard-to-access areas and an increasing number of threats across the range," Professor Chapple said. "The only way we're going to tackle this is by dedicated, well-funded and well-coordinated recovery plans and recovery efforts."