Funding casualty wildlife research
Australia is rapidly losing the capacity to carry out world-class wildlife research because of a dramatic decline in funding and loss of jobs for highly qualified scientists. Australian National University ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer said government funding cuts and retrenchments had forced Australian wildlife research “into meltdown”. He said despite alarming and continuing loss of Australia’s biodiversity, there were now fewer jobs and research grants for “the hard, complex science” to address the problem.
University of Melbourne environmental scientist Professor Snow Barlow said wildlife research had been “an early, obvious casualty” of a Federal Government switch to funding research that promised to deliver commercial rewards.