If you think it’s been a tough year to be a human, consider our fellow earthlings for a moment.
In 2025, federal legislation was finally introduced by Labor to stop live sheep exports (to take effect in 2028), but the cruel, wasteful live trade from Australia carries on, with cattle, goats and rock lobsters also being shipped out in growing numbers, whistleblowers be damned.
Horse and greyhound racing continues from coast to coast, with state by state regulations being very slow to catch up with evidence of cruelty, and politicians reluctant to act, particularly after seeing what the racing industry did to Mike Baird.
Mulesing (otherwise known as live lamb cutting) is still happening across Australia, despite the wool industry promising to ban it in 2010.
As for native species, duck hunting for ‘recreation’ is still allowed in Victoria, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania. Kangaroo hunting is legal in most places, with varying (theoretical) regulations, and you can easily get a licence to kill wombats, cockatoos, and other ‘pest’ animals if you’re a property owner, without investigating humane alternatives.
Shark nets remain in place around the eastern Australian coastline, despite evidence that all they achieve is the slow, pointless deaths of multiple, non-target species, and the torture and killing of fish is perfectly fine almost everywhere, celebrated as part of Aussie ‘culture’.
Extinction is forever
Next year we commemorate 90 years since the last thylacine died in captivity, but Australians appear to have learned nothing from this tragedy.
2025 began with 42 additions to the national threatened species list, including 21 animals, 20 plants and one entire ecological community. This happened under the watch of the Albanese government, which committed to ‘no new extinctions’ in 2022, before allowing the destruction of twice as much threatened species habitat in 2024 as it greenlit in 2023.
The latest animal to officially go extinct was the Christmas Island shrew (that’s 39 Australian mammals gone forever since colonisation), with the critically endangered Maugean skate probably not far behind, under the disgusting, polluting pressure of the farmed salmon industry.
Altogether there are now almost 2,500 animals, plants and ecosystems facing extinction in Australia. The insect world – often ignored despite being crucial to the pyramid of life – is currently losing between two and three species in this country each week, joining an estimated 9,000 non-marine invertebrate species to go the way of the dinosaurs here since 1788.
Meanwhile an insect imported by humans, the fire ant, is further accelerating the loss of local species as it spreads. When the latest incarnation of bird flu arrives on the Australian mainland, the impact is expected to be devastating to local creatures.
As the climate emergency makes everything steadily worse, natural ecosystems continue to be destroyed by humans for everything from housing to coal mines, factory farms to forestry, roads to renewable energy infrastructure.
For many species, the future looks incredibly grim.
So what can governments do?
With the new federal environment laws set to return more power to the states, this is likely to be bad news for animals in many places, but the news isn’t all bad.
After years of sustained community pressure, the Minns government recently agreed to deliver on its long-promised Great Koala National Park. Too little, too late? Maybe, but it’s much better than nothing.
Also in NSW, negotiations between Labor and the shooting lobby to increase the number of guns in parks and the amount of shooting happening across the state under the guise of ‘conservation hunting’ are now highly unlikely to proceed, although animal welfare is not the reason.
In a decision which continues to divide animal-lovers, John Barilaro’s protection of introduced horses in alpine national parks was finally swept aside, due to the devastation they are causing in the country romanticised by Banjo Paterson.
Also this year, Animal Justice Party representatives in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia celebrated their role in banning puppy farming, protecting blue gropers, outlawing glue traps, and improving funding for wombat mange treatment, animal rescue and cat desexing programs, as well as strengthening animal sexual abuse laws.
Federally, the Australian code for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes is currently under review, and there are also calls to increase penalties for international animal smuggling, with over 4,000 illegal wildlife shipments intercepted by Australian Border Force each year, and many more likely going undetected.
Wildlife hospitals recently received new and much-needed funding, and $5 million has been committed over four years to the renewal of the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy, but these steps look insignificant compared to changes in other jurisdictions.
Consider Catalonia, where bullfighting was banned in 2010 despite being culturally entrenched – a Spanish ban seems likely to follow. In the United Kingdom, it’s no longer legal to boil crustaceans alive, and fox hunting has also been outlawed. Ecuador has considered the rights of nature since 2008. New Zealand’s Whanganui River has been considered a ‘legal person’ since 2017.
Maybe Australian nature needs a bumper sticker: ‘I can’t vote but I keep you alive’. In 2026, let’s hope our politicians have a bit more respect for what makes this country precious, and unique.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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