**Longlisted, Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award 2026**
‘I’m listening for a ghost. Bright green and yellow, with a tail striped like a bumble-bee, it crouches in wait as the sun sinks below the escarpment...’
Australia is a country celebrated for its wildlife, yet native species are in crisis. In the last 200 years, Australia has lost more biodiversity than any other developed nation.
In this book, award-winning science writer Justine E. Hausheer encounters pygmy possums that live high in the Snowy Mountains, hears the booming calls of bitterns from their adopted home in the Riverina’s rice fields, crouches after dark in the spinifex grasslands listening for the elusive night parrot and meets adorable fat-tailed dunnarts who might hold the answers to reviving the Tasmanian tiger.
The Vanishing Wild immerses us in the harsh reality of the extinction crisis – and shows us the future of conservation and what can be done to save Australia’s native species.
‘Australia’s wildlife is iconic, but its list of threatened species has only ever got longer. With her engaging and impassioned accounts, Justine Hausheer takes readers with her as she visits conservationists in the field and lab working tirelessly to save a series of incredible animals from extinction, while the world waits for politicians to take the environment seriously.’ – Jack Ashby, author of Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals
‘A lively and engaging account of Australia’s most compelling wildlife conservation challenges. Justine Hausheer shares stories of lost and vanishing birds, mammals and reptiles – along with the desperate hope and determination of those working so hard to save them.’ – Danielle Clode, author of The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature
‘Extinction equates to a silencing of nature. Justine Hausheer beautifully gives voice both to the animals on the precipice as well as those dedicated to bringing them back.’ – Sean Dooley, BirdLife Australia
‘Riveting, deeply alarming, shocking yet hopeful. Written in a way that encourages curiosity and engagement, full of impossible-to-forget-or-unlearn scenes and entangled quandaries, tragic and timely, a vitally important contribution to popular science, essential for anyone who wants to understand Australia’s conservation dilemmas.’ – Darryl Jones, author of Curlews on Vulture Street: Cities, Birds, People and Me
‘Engrossing, captivating, and full of heart and adventure, The Vanishing Wild is a soliloquy to the weird and wonderful animals of Australia and a clarion call for their conservation, from a brilliant science writer with a flair for storytelling. As Justine Hausheer regales us with tales of night parrots, pygmy possums, and platypuses – and the colourful scientists who study them – you soon find yourself swept up in her passion for protecting Australia’s fauna.’ – Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh palaeontologist and New York Times/Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
