Protecting endangered species requires an understanding and management of the main threats likely to cause population declines. We modelled the potential threats to the northern bettong and determined that predation by feral cats has the highest potential to cause bettong population declines, with juvenile mortality rates impacting bettong population stability more than adult mortality. Population declines of other small mammal populations may also be driven by juvenile mortality and thus assessing and managing mortality rates within this age classes may assist in conserving small mammal species.

It is widely contended that white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is limited at the northern edge of its range by the severity of winter climate conditions. This investigation compared several habitat indicators and found that climate had a strong influence on the distribution of white-tailed deer. As species such as the white-tailed deer expand northward, their populations may become an important consideration in the management of other wildlife in these regions.

Successful wildlife reintroductions require public support. In 2015, 130 Wood Bison were reintroduced to rural Alaska. We surveyed urban and rural Alaska residents to understand the effect of proximity to the resource on preferences for wood bison management in different scenarios (e.g., damage to property, injuries causing human harm). Overall, urban and rural Alaska residents showed high levels of tolerance to co-exist with wood bison.

Retaliatory killing of carnivores in response to livestock depredation is a major threat to carnivore species worldwide. This study aimed to assess how changes in herding practices affected depredation rates from snow leopards and wolves in the South Gobi, Mongolia. We make recommendations on how to minimize human-wildlife conflicts by adjusting livestock husbandry practices.

Feral cats are known to kill many Australian reptiles, but the conservation consequences of such predation have not previously been comprehensively assessed. Here, we aggregated and modelled results from many studies and found that (1) predation by cats on reptiles was highest in arid areas, (2) an average feral cat kills 225 reptiles per year, (3) across Australia, 649 million reptiles are killed by cats annually, (4) this rate of loss is higher than that reported on other continents, and (5) predation by cats has been reported for 258 Australian reptile species including 11 threatened species. These results indicate that predation by cats may be a threat affecting many Australian reptile species.

Introduced European rabbits are extending their range in Australia’s northern monsoonal regions where lactational heat stress was thought to limit their distribution. In seeking an explanation for this, we provide evidence that female rabbits spread food intake evenly across the nursing period and use body reserves to support lactation, thereby minimising heat stress. Slow colonisation of monsoonal regions is likely to continue.

Cougars are highly elusive, making them a logical species for camera trapping studies; their lack of distinguishing markings, however, may render them unsuitable for camera trap-based abundance estimates, since this method requires that individuals are reliably identifiable in photographs. We tested wildlife biologists’ ability to identify individual cougars from a camera trapping dataset. Our results suggest that identifying cougars in photographs is ambiguous and raise important concerns about this method.

Aircraft-Magpie collisions are a threat to aviation safety, and the way magpies respond to the early signals of nearby planes (i.e. their noise) may influence collision risk. Magpies were less responsive to aircraft noise on an airport compared to elsewhere. This tolerance might mean magpies are less prone to collisions, and removal of airport magpies might result in colonisation by naïve, collision-prone individuals.