Fauna of Australia in Australia, feeding on sea grass in coastal areas. The destruction of sea grass beds is a threat to the survival of this species. Eleven species of seal—family Pinnipedia—live off the southern coast. Australia and its territories are home to around 800 species of bird; 45% of these are endemic to Australia. The fossil record of birds in Australia is patchy; however, there are records of the ancestors of contemporary species as early as the Late Oligocene. Birds with a Gondwanan history include the flightless ratites (the emu and southern cassowary), megapodes (the malleefowl and Australian brush-turkey), and a huge
Emu settlers, and are now farmed, in Australia and elsewhere, for their meat, oil and leather. Commercial emu farming started in Western Australia around 1970. The commercial industry in the country is based on stock bred in captivity, and all states except Tasmania have licensing requirements to protect wild emus. Outside Australia, emus are farmed on a large scale in North America, with about 1 million birds in the US, Peru, and China, and to a lesser extent in some other countries. Emus breed well in captivity, and are kept in large open pens to avoid the leg and digestive problems