The environment of the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, in south east Queensland, has changed fundamentally since white settlement, and this threatens the survival of the species. Some of the damage to lungfish habitats is the result of human determination to use water for the various needs of industry and people. Additional problems include droughts and floods, as well as loss of plant or animal biodiversity of value to basal fishes like lungfish. Submerged aquatic plants used by lungfish as spawning sites and refuges for the young have been significantly reduced, and food animals for adults and hatchlings are absent or much less common. Without appropriate nutrition for adults, eggs lack the right nutrients for young lungfish. They are unable to develop properly, and die at an early age. Populations of the Australian lungfish in south east Queensland are no longer reproducing sufficiently to guarantee survival of the species in wild habitats of south east Queensland. Lungfish have already died out in Enoggera Reservoir, one of the localities to which lungfish were introduced in 1896. Lungfish will soon be extinct in the four remaining rivers to which they are endemic, because so much biodiversity has been lost. They may survive for a while in the protected environments of zoological parks and aquaria, but not in the habitats where they evolved and lived for so long.

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