![]() “We want a Koala Protection Act,” she said. The Australian government is drafting a National Recovery Plan for the Koala which will be reviewed in December 2021 before potentially becoming law in 2022.īut Deborah Tabart, chairman of the Australian Koala Foundation, says much more needs to be done to protect koalas and their habitat across the entire country, warning the marsupials could be wiped out within three generations. In some regions, the report found populations had almost halved over just 20 years. In mid-2021, an Australian government report on the conservation status of koalas recommended the animal’s status be changed to “endangered” in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, as a result of the rapid population decline in those areas. That figure includes more than 60,000 koalas that either died, lost their habitat or suffered injury, trauma, smoke inhalation and heat stress from the flames.Ī koala named Paul from Lake Innes Nature Reserve recovers from his burns in the ICU at The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital on November 29, 2019, in Port Macquarie, Australia. ![]() The fires killed or displaced nearly 3 billion animals, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The country’s koala population suffered severe losses during the catastrophic bushfires of 2019, which destroyed more than 12 million acres (48,000 squares kilometers) of land across New South Wales alone. The IUCN says there are between 100,000 and half a million koalas in the wild, but the Australian Koala Foundation says the number is closer to 58,000.Ĭonfusion about the size of Australia’s koala population inspired the government to commit 2 million Australian dollars ($1.47 million) last year to a national koala census to work out where they are and how many are left. The koala is listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, which catalogs species at risk of extinction. Apart from disease, the marsupials suffer habitat loss and are often attacked by wild dogs and hit by cars. The gray, fluffy-eared marsupial, which eats leaves from the eucalyptus tree and carries its young in its pouch, can only be found in Australia and is regularly seen in cultural representations of the country.īut koalas face a number of threats to their survival. There are few more emblematic Australian animals than the koala. “We run a very high risk, if this vaccine strategy doesn’t work … of localized extinctions,” Krockenberger said. Scientists are now trialing vaccines against chlamydia to protect the animals. ![]() Pretty much every female that’s infected with chlamydia becomes infertile within a year, maybe two years maximum … Even if they survive, they’re not breeding,” he said.Įxperts say situations like that in Gunnedah are playing out among koala populations across Australia, threatening populations already vulnerable to worsening bushfires and habitat loss due to deforestation. “If you think about it, that’s not a viable population anymore because of infertility. Now, about 85% of that koala population is infected with the disease, Krockenberger said. In 2008, there was a “very, very low chlamydial prevalence” – about 10% – in the koala population in Gunnedah, a rural town in northeast New South Wales, according to Mark Krockenberger, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Sydney.īy 2015, that figure had risen to as high as 60%. Worse still, antibiotics used to treat the disease can destroy the delicate gut flora koalas need to consume their staple diet of eucalyptus leaves, leading some to starve to death even after being cured. The culprit is chlamydia, a sexually transmitted bacteria that infects more than 100 million people worldwide annually and can cause infertility in humans if left untreated.įor koalas, uncontrolled chlamydia can cause blindness and painful cysts in a animal’s reproductive tract that may lead to infertility or even death. A silent killer is spreading through Australia’s koala population, posing a threat that wildlife experts say could wipe out the iconic marsupial across large parts of the country. ![]()
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