The Australian Wildlife Conservancy is pitching a $3million plan in a bid to protect Australia’s fauna.

Australia has a shocking reputation when it comes to protecting the nation’s native animals, with 29 mammal species lost and 1800 species being under threat, since last year.

AWC CEO, Atticus Fleming, said the new plan would allow for better strategy to be in place to protect our animals.

“This kind of collaboration, between private non-profit and for public sectors can show us the way forward.

“What the AWC and the Queensland government are looking at doing is [showing that] Diamantina and Astrebla Downs can be a model for the rest of the country and potentially for the rest of the world,” he said.

Mr Fleming said our native animals needed to be protected otherwise Australia would lose its international identity.

“If we lose the uniquely Australian animals then we lose a part of our identity, our culture, our national character, we reduce what it means to be Australian.”

Feral cats are one of the biggest predators to native animals, however,  director of Pest Animal Management Queensland, Glen Alchin said foxes had a taste for Queensland’s native wildlife and even people’s domestic pets.

“[Foxes] are attacking people’s pet dogs or pet cats in urban areas, or they may be killing marsupials. They are very fond of the smaller macropods… the red shoulder wallabies – things like that.”

He said threatening animals were euthanised and then donated to universities or scientific institutes for research.

The carcasses of the foxes, wild dogs and things like that, I usually donate them to either Biosecurity Queensland peri-urban wild dog program for research, or they go to University of Queensland Gatton campus,” he said.

He said most pest complaints were not related to protecting wildlife and not enough ground staff to remove pests contributes to the decrease in Australia’s native animal.

“I think we have the worst record in the world for endangered species, and that’s because not enough people do ground work at the lower level, the actual removal.”