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The task I am promoting in this paper is to expand the conservation and management focus from just threatened vertebrate species to include all non-threatened vertebrates. I reason that it is easily possible to do so because it lies within our long-standing legal and public interest in our native birds and mammals, and more recently, reptiles and frogs. The shortfall in achieving the aspiration to conserve biodiversity is evident by examining both the Commonwealth and NSW governments' official State of the Environment reports. The rise of threatened species in the conservation agenda, called ‘endangered species’ in NSW until 1995, is examined from the time the legal interpretation of endangered species became important in 1991with a decision by Justice Paul Stein of the NSW Land and Environment Court. Endangered species had captured both the legal and popular imagination, leading to the passage of …