The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reclassified the numbat from endangered to near threatened on its Red List. Numbat populations rebounded from a low of 300 in the late 1970s to between 2,000 and 3,000 today, with at least five self-sustaining populations established owing to conservation work.

"Life on Earth has adapted to survive in the most hostile and unusual habitats [but] as pressures on biodiversity mount across the planet, even the creatures with the most ingenious survival strategies are under threat," said Dr Grethel Aguilar, IUCN director general. She added, "But there is a clear path out of the biodiversity crisis: nature conservation works."

"The [numbat] assessment shows that long-term conservation effort works; without it, invasive cats and foxes will continue to drive Australia's small marsupials and native rodents to extinction," said Professor John Woinarski, co-chair of the IUCN species survival commission group on Australasian marsupials and monotremes.

In contrast to the numbat's reclassification, five other Australian marsupials were confirmed as extinct on the Red List: the crest-tailed mulgara, southern mulgara, northern mulgara, little mulgara, and little bettong. More than 40 modern mammal extinctions have been recorded in Australia. The numbat is an insectivorous Australian marsupial that primarily consumes termites.

The IUCN Red List includes 175,909 species, with 49,505 currently threatened with extinction. "This global assessment reveals that [vent] molluscs are one of the most highly threatened of all animal groups," said Prof Julia Sigwart, a professor at Senckenberg Nature Research.