A comment on the distribution of historical and contemporary livestock grazing across Australia: Implications for using dingoes for biodiversity conservation

Abstract

Summary Understanding the causes of faunal declines is important for preserving Australia’s threatened fauna. Both predation and livestock grazing have been investigated as potential causes of declines, but some studies struggle to account for historical grazing impacts due to the lack of historical information on livestock distribution and grazing intensity. This article summarises some trends in the extent of historical and contemporary livestock grazing on mainland Australia. The cumulative effects of historical livestock grazing are discussed in the light of studies investigating the influences of predation and livestock grazing on faunal declines.