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Even small-scale clearing and vegetation manipulation affects local wildlife

Do animals mind how densely vegetated their habitat is? Numbers of birds, reptiles and mammals have been recorded in sites which are fully vegetative, have been thinned, or are completely cleared. Bird numbers have been found to significantly decrease in thinned and cleared areas, and while reptile numbers decrease in cleared areas, they seem to be unchanged in thinned sites. Mammal registration was low across the board.

Many of the species that declined in abundance are those whose numbers severely decreased as a result of clearing in South-Eastern Australia.

Proposed increases in agricultural land use in Northern Australia may adversely affect native fauna.

Read more at CSIRO

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