Koalas Must be Protected

Taree Bo Bo was rehabilitated by the Koala Preservation Society in New South Wales, Australia and released to the wild. (Koala Preservation Society of NSW Inc.)

In April, The Financial Times newspaper reported that the future of koalas is the subject of a heated conservation debate across Australia. After recovering remarkably from the fur trade that pushed them to the brink of extinction early in the twentieth century, koalas now are at risk from brushfires, road deaths by automobiles, and attacks by people’s pets and feral animals. Most significant, however, are habitat destruction and human development, which squeeze koalas from their forest homes. As the Financial Times story reports: “The koala problem then is twofold - lack of places to live and speed of population growth. Building developments and agricultural practices have isolated areas of suitable native bush that have become the equivalent of islands where koala populations have increased unchecked.”

In southern Australia, koalas are blamed for literally eating trees to death. The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), however, contends that disease is killing the trees. Deborah Tabart, AKF Executive Director, portrays the koala as a scapegoat in the destruction of trees in Kangaroo Island: “Habitat fragmentation, insufficient fire regimes, grazing, logging, farming and edge effects have contributed to the death of trees on Kangaroo Island. It is ridiculous to blame the koalas for the damage people have done.”

Solutions to the koala conflict must be sought that do not involve indiscriminately killing these eucalyptus-loving tree-dwellers. One current action is sterilization, by vasectomizing males. Some koalas are being relocated to less-crowded areas. A more appropriate, long-term solution is to limit land clearing and promote the planting of new trees. As Ms. Tabart notes, “There are not too many koalas--there are too few trees.”