Skink havens offer hope for Australia's struggling reptiles

When Stephen Peck visits yakka skink colonies scattered between Cape York and southern Queensland, he sees a species at risk of extinction.

But a population in Charleville, eight hours west of Brisbane, tells a different story.

"We're seeing an increase in all the age cohorts, which is really, really pleasing," the University of Southern Queensland PhD candidate said.

The enigmatic yakka skink is unusually social for a reptile; it defecates in communal latrines and never strays too far from home.

"It lives in family groups, usually made up of a non-related adult pair and then multiple years of babies," Mr Peck said.

While a skink can live for 30 years, its tendency to stay within a small area makes it susceptible to introduced predators and land clearing.

But its predictable nature has also made it easier to protect.

Skink sanctuary allows juveniles to grow

Three years ago, Mr Peck led a project to build fences around several yakka skink habitats in Charleville, and he continued to monitor individuals, recognisable by their unique chin patterns.

"At the unfenced sites I've been trapping at this morning, I've been catching one or two. And here, in one of the fenced sites, I've caught 12 skinks," he said.

The four fenced sites now have an estimated population of 28, up from about 10.

The fences exclude introduced predators like cats and foxes but still allow natural predators like snakes and birds to move through.

Recently, Mr Peck noticed some skinks from inside the enclosures had established themselves outside the fenced area after growing to a small adult size of about 400 millimetres long.

"I think the large adults are probably just a little bit too big for cats," he said.

"I now have four colonies that have been set up from animals that have been born and matured inside the fence."

The yakka skink has traditionally adopted wombat and bilby burrows but now uses rabbit burrows, too.

Mr Peck said this behaviour showed the species could adapt and hoped there would eventually be enough skinks reproducing to keep up with predation.

"If we can fence some sites and get animals to survive and disperse and set up new colonies, we can maintain the species in the landscape."

He said three further sites in Charleville had recently been fenced.

Hope for reptiles lies in addressing threats

Monash ecologist David Chapple said Mr Peck's research demonstrated the significance of threat management on a local scale.

"Ideally, what you'd want is the more range-wide reduction of the threats to the species, which I guess is the ultimate goal that we're moving towards," Professor Chapple said.

He said the conservation status of Australian reptiles had declined, with 127 now believed to be threatened.

Western Queensland remained a priority area for discovering and studying new species that were likely to be threatened.

"We're dealing with these large knowledge gaps, species that occur in remote and hard-to-access areas and an increasing number of threats across the range," Professor Chapple said.

"The only way we're going to tackle this is by dedicated, well-funded and well-coordinated recovery plans and recovery efforts."