Since European settlement western New South Wales has lost 27 of the 71 species that were present in 1788. If bats are not included in the figures then 47% (27 of 57 species) of the mammal fauna of western New South Wales is now regionally extinct. Of the 30 remaining species, nine have declined in distribution. Extinctions are not randomly distributed among the fauna, the majority of species lost are either rodents, smaller macropods, bandicoots or larger dasyurids. The Scotia Endangered Mammal Recovery Project (SEMRP) seeks to reintroduce a significant proportion of these species, both as a contribution to national recovery efforts, and to reconstruct, to the extent that this is possible, the biodiversity of south western New South Wales. SEMRP aims to establish wild, self-sustaining populations of these species on Scotia and, in the longer term, throughout the area.
By 2008, AWC hopes to have established self-sustaining populations of at least seven species previously regionally extinct. Six threatened species have already been reintroduced including: Numbats (Vulnerable); Greater Bilbies (Vulnerable); Burrowing Bettong (Vulnerable); Brush-tailed Bettongs (Conservation Dependent); Bridled Nailtail Wallabies (Endangered) and Greater Stick-nest rat (Vulnerable). Reintroduction of additional species is planned for 2007.
Despite limited biological survey effort, particularly for amphibians and small mammals, Scotia is known to support 211 species of native wildlife.
Twenty one of these species are threatened either nationally or within New South Wales, and an additional 17 are considered to be of conservation significance at the state or regional level.
