The <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/13132/0" target="_blank">Bramble Cay melomys</a> had numbered in the hundreds in the 1980s but by the 2000s, its population had plummeted to under a dozen. The rodent was last spotted in 2009, and according to Hilton-Taylor, “all attempts to find it since have failed.” <br> <br> High tides and surging seawater, a result of rising temperatures, have been pinpointed as the cause of the melomys’ demise. The animal, Barnosky told The Guardian in June, is a “cogent example of how climate change <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2016/jun/29/bramble-cay-melomys-australia-extinction-climate-change-great-barrier-reef" target="_blank">provides the coup de grâce</a> to already critically endangered species.” <br><br> Australian scientists said they had hoped to prevent the extinction of the melomys by starting a captive breeding program for the animal. <br><br>By the time they launched a rescue mission to retrieve the creature, however, they discovered they were much too late. <br><br> “My colleagues and I were devastated,” Ian Gynther, a senior conservation officer in Queensland’s Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, told The Guardian.
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