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. “It is time for the koala to be afforded the same respect.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. “The Bald Eagle Act was successful because there was political motive to ensure their icon did not go extinct,” says Tabart. There is hope: The Koala Protection Act is based on the US’s Bald Eagle Act, which was successful in rescuing America’s national symbol from the threatened species list. “I am calling on the new prime minister after the May election to enact the Koala Protection Act (KPA) which has been written and ready to go since 2016.” “I know the Australian public are concerned for the safety of koalas and are tired of seeing dead koalas on our roads,” says AKF chairman Deborah Tabart. Activists are begging local pols to step in. If a new disease or genetic pathogen of any kind is introduced, surviving koalas will die off rapidly. Only 41 of the koala’s 128 known habitats in federal environments have any of the animals left. The tree-dwelling species has been ravaged by the effects of rising temperatures and heatwaves, which have caused widespread deforestation and fatal dehydration in koalas, according to the AKF. The fluffy marsupial is down to just 80,000 wild species members, meaning there aren’t enough breeding adults left to support another generation of the pouched mammals. Koala bears have been declared “functionally extinct,” the Australian Koala Foundation reports. They are in danger of going the way of the dodo. Koala declared endangered as disease, lost habitat take tollĪustralia has lost one-third of its koalas in the past three yearsīlind koala and her baby rescued from side of road Scientists are vaccinating koalas against chlamydia as the STD threatens population
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