Monday, March 25

Number of Koalas Living in the Wild has Shrunk Significantly in Three Years

Australia’s koalas are in bad shape. The population has shrunk significantly in the past three years, the Australian Koala Foundation (AFK) reports after its own research.

 

According to the non-profit organization, this is the result of drought, forest fires and felling of trees.

Australia is currently estimated to have between 32,000 and 58,000 koalas. In 2018 there were more than 80,000. The decrease is most significant in the state of New South Wales, at 41 percent. The estimate of the AFK is therefore considerably lower than the 300,000 koalas that scientists still assumed in 2016. Because koalas are usually high in the trees and move little, they are easy to miss, making reliable counts difficult.

The chairman of AFK describes the new figures as “dramatic” and believes that koalas should be protected by law. It is estimated that more than 5,000 koalas lived at just one site included in the study. In other places, there were sometimes only five or ten. There are also regions where the animals no longer occur at all.

Koalas live in eastern Australia, especially in eucalyptus forests. Much of their habitat has disappeared due to logging. Australian wildlife was also heavily ravaged by bushfires this year. In addition, hundreds of koalas are killed every year.

Around 1850, millions of koala bears still lived in Australia. But the animal was heavily hunted for its fur. As a result, at least 8 million koalas were killed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and used for coats and hats.

The Australian government is working on a recovery plan, which will change the koala’s status from vulnerable to endangered.

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