The Bramble Cay melomys is considered the first mammal to become extinct due to anthropogenic climate change. A small rodent from the Muridae family, the Bramble Cay melomys was endemic to the very small and isolated island of Bramble Cay, located about 31 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the species extinct in 2015.

Greg references “that article about the Bramble Cay melomys,” which could be this one from The Guardian, excerpted below:

Their decline was swift and alarming. In reports from 1978, scientists documented several hundred individual melomyses. A 1998 survey report by the Australian government counted just under 100.

The tiny cay and its essentially trapped inhabitants were susceptible to even small changes in the surrounding ocean. Climate change and rising sea levels led to salt-water intrusions throughout the island, choking much of the flora – in the decade between 2004 and 2014, the volume of leafy plants on Bramble Cay shrank by 97%. Storm surges also winnowed down the population, sweeping animals out to sea.

When biologists returned in 2002 and 2004, only about a dozen melomyses could be found. Natalie Waller, a conservation biologist, was one of the scientists who voyaged to Bramble Cay in 2011 and again in 2014 with the express purpose of trapping, or at least documenting, whatever melomyses were left.

“We didn’t catch any,” she remembers sadly. The team scoured the island, placing rodent traps around the sandy cay and installing cameras for surveillance. “We were planning on setting up a captive insurance population,” Waller says – but there was simply no trace of a single melomys. Even searches for scat and nesting grounds yielded nothing.

In Australia, February 18 marks Bramble Cay melomys Remembrance Day, which is observed to promote awareness of climate change and the need for habitat protection. Here’s a clip of Australian MP Andy Meddick speaking on the occasion in 2020:

The Bramble Cay melomys was also featured on a 2019 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (the melomys is referenced in the below clip around the 2:45 mark):