Threatened species

The Gold Coast has close to 200 threatened species. A threatened species is any animal or plant species that is at risk of extinction. Threatened species are listed under the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and/or the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NC Act). These two forms of legislation (EPBC Act and NC Act ) provide a legal framework to identify, protect and manage threatened species.

There are a range of factors used to assess a species' conservation status including:

  • the number of individuals remaining
  • the overall increase or decrease in the population over time
  • breeding success rates
  • known threats to their survival.

While the categories and definitions vary between Federal and State legislation, the conservation status indicates whether a species still exists and how likely it is to become extinct.

Threatened species are allocated to different conservation classes depending on their risk of extinction and then classed as either of the following:

  • critically endangered
  • endangered
  • vulnerable
  • conservation dependent (EPBC) near threatened (NCA)

    least concern.

For more information on threatened species and lists

Australian Government's threatened species

Queensland Government threatened species

Animals

More than 80 native animal species living on the Gold Coast are classed as threatened, including:

  • terrestrial mammals – koala, central greater glider, black-tailed antechinus, long-nosed potoroo, new holland mouse, and water mouse
  • bats – grey-headed flying-fox and large-eared pied bat
  • marine mammals – humpback whale, Australian humpback dolphin and dugong
  • terrestrial birds - glossy black-cockatoo, Albert's lyrebird, white-throated needletail, powerful owl, plumed frogmouth and black-breasted button quail
  • migratory shorebirds – red knot, curlew sandpiper, great knot, greater sand plover, lesser sand plover, bar-tailed godwit and eastern curlew
  • resident shorebird – beach stone-curlew
  • wetland birds – Australasian bittern and Australian painted snipe
  • sea birds – albatross (antipodean, wandering, gibson's, buller's, indian yellow-nosed, shy, grey-headed, white-capped), southern and northern giant-petrels, herald petrel, red tailed tropic bird and wedge-tailed shearwater
  • marine turtles – loggerhead turtle, green turtle and hawksbill turtle
  • frogs – fleay's barred-frog, giant barred-frog, tusked frog, wallum froglet, wallum rocketfrog, wallum sedgefrog and cascade treefrog
  • butterflies and moths – Richmond birdwing, Illidge's ant-blue and pink underwing moth
  • a stingray – estuary stingray
  • crayfish – hinterland spiny crayfish and swamp crayfish.

View the following to learn more:

Queensland Government's list of threatened animal species recorded on the Gold Coast.

Plants

There are nearly 120 threatened plant species including Ormeau bottle tree, Springbrook leatherwood, tree waratah, and the nightcap daisy bush, to name just a few.

View the following to learn more:

Queensland Government's list of rare or threatened plant species recorded on the Gold Coast

Threatened rainforest plants of the Gold Coast(PDF, 1MB)

Related information

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