sage of a 1967 referendum that granted the government power to legislate for the Aborigines and to include them in the census count. At the 1991 census, 238,590 Australian residents were counted as Aborigines. More than 70 percent of the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders live in urban areas. Traditional ways of life are still maintained in small enclaves in the more remote locations, especially in the north and center of the continent. Every region of the country is represented by its own Aboriginal land council, and most regions run cultural centers and festivals. A shared desire to reassert their claim to land rights has united the widely separated communities, and Aboriginality is now widely expressed in art, popular music, law, literature, and sport.Unique forms of animal life exist in Australia. Seven families of mammals and four families of birds are classified as native to the country. About 70 percent of the birds, 88 percent of the reptiles, and 94 percent of the frogs are unique to Australia. Seven of the more than 700 known species of birds have become extinct since the beginning of European settlement, and another 36 are endangered. Of mammals, 19 are extinct and 49 are threatened. One striking aspect of mammal life in Australia is the absence of representatives of most of the orders found on other continents. However, the primitive, egg-laying mammals known as monotremes are found mostly in Australia. One of them, the platypus, is an aquatic, furred mammal with a bill like that of a duck and with poisonous spurs. It lives in the streams of southeastern Australia. Another monotreme of Australia is the spiny anteater.Most native mammals are marsupials, the young of which are nourished in an abdominal pouch. The best-known marsupials of Australia are the kangaroos, which include about 50 species. The phalangers are marsupials that live in trees; they include the possum and the koala, a popular fur-bearing animal that i...
