Banded hare-wallaby

Lagostrophus fasciatus

Blamed on foxes

IUCN status: Vulnerable

EPBC Predator Threat Rating: Not assessed

IUCN claim: “The species presumably was extirpated from mainland Australia by a combination of predation by the Red Fox and feral cat and habitat disturbance.”

Studies in support

No studies

Studies not in support

Hare-wallabies were last confirmed on the mainland in southwest Australia (two records) 30-4 years before foxes arrived (Wallach and Lundgren 2025).

Is the threat claim evidence-based?

No studies were found linking foxes to banded hare-wallabies. The exirpation records pre-date the fox arrival records.

Evidence linking Lagostrophus fasciatus to foxes. A. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Lagostrophus fasciatus and foxes. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that foxes contribute to the decline of Lagostrophus fasciatus, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance. Gold borders indicate studies that meet qualities of scientific rigour. B. Last records of extirpated populations relative to earliest local records of foxes. Error bars show minimum and maximum extinction intervals. Predator arrival records were digitized from Fairfax 2019. See methods section in Wallach and Lundgren 2025 for details on evidence categories.
Evidence linking Lagostrophus fasciatus to foxes. A. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Lagostrophus fasciatus and foxes. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that foxes contribute to the decline of Lagostrophus fasciatus, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance. Gold borders indicate studies that meet qualities of scientific rigour. B. Last records of extirpated populations relative to earliest local records of foxes. Error bars show minimum and maximum extinction intervals. Predator arrival records were digitized from Fairfax 2019. See methods section in Wallach and Lundgren 2025 for details on evidence categories.

References

Fairfax, Dispersal of the introduced red fox (Vulpes vulpes) across Australia. Biol. Invasions 21, 1259-1268 (2019).

IUCN Red List. https://www.iucnredlist.org/ Accessed June 2023

Wallach A.D., Lundgren E.J. (2025) Review of evidence that foxes and cats cause extinctions of Australia’s endemic mammals. BioScience. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biaf046