Why are state and federal governments driving the koala to extinction?

Australia’s state and federal governments are committing crimes against nature in consistently refusing to listen to a deeply concerned public, the scientific community and conservation organisations, writes Sue Arnold.

ARE WE DEALING WITH political environmental vandalism?

This is a question hundreds of thousands of concerned Australians are asking as community after community holds demonstrations, writes endless emails to government ministers, signs petitions, gets arrested and weeps as habitat is destroyed.

Pictures of koalas deprived of their home range, left with tree stumps and no future, should be a powerful injunction for governments to heed the extent of public protest. Their combined lack of concern demonstrates a collective rejection of Australia’s catastrophic loss of biodiversity and, in particular, the looming loss of one of this nation’s iconic species.

In 1927, U.S. President Hoover banned the import of koala skins into the U.S., eliminating a major market and saving the koala from extinction caused by the fur trade.

The scale of the slaughter was immense. Reliable data is difficult to find, but researchers estimate that 450,000 to 500,000 koalas were killed each year between 1903 and 1906. No records exist prior to the early 1900s. After 1906, the harvest increased to an estimated 450,000 to 1 million skins per season.

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By the time the ban was introduced, the koala population had been reduced to an estimated one per cent of its original size.

Conservation scientists have long argued that Australia’s koala populations are still living with the consequences of the commercial fur trade. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, millions of koalas were killed, causing dramatic population collapses across much of the species’ range.

Recent genomic studies indicate that modern koalas possess significantly lower genetic diversity than historical populations, suggesting that the species has never fully recovered from the demographic bottleneck created by the fur trade and subsequent habitat destruction.

More recently, an estimated 60,000 koalas were incinerated in the Black Summer 2019-2020 bushfires. Infrastructure, urbanisation, forest logging, and fossil fuel projects are destroying koala habitat day after day, week after week, leaving confused, terrified koalas without any hope of survival. Faithful to their ranges, without feed and shelter trees, they suffer from diseases caused by stress, starvation, and dehydration, which take their toll.

Climate change impacts on koala habitat have been completely ignored by state and federal governments, despite the International Union for the Conservation of Nature identifying the koala as one of ten global species vulnerable to climate impacts in 2009.

Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will reduce the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves, leading to nutrient shortages in species that forage on them. As a result, Koalas may no longer be able to meet their nutritional needs, leading to malnutrition and starvation.

Koalas have a very limited capacity to adapt to rapid, human-induced climate change, making them highly vulnerable to its negative impacts.

The koala is the last living representative of the family Phascolarctidae. Koalas are an umbrella species for coastal forest ecosystems. When habitat is destroyed, so too are a significant number of species which share the same ecosystem.

Habitat destruction pushing koalas toward extinction

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Diseases are rampant. Koala research demonstrates that koalas are dying from anaemia, leukaemia-lymphoma, a raft of cancers, including bone cancer, metastatic sarcoma, blood cancer, and mammary cancers. As if the list of cancers isn’t shocking enough, koalas also suffer from acute respiratory illness, a serious lung condition leading to impaired lung function, a twisting of the intestine which can cause anorexia, lethargy, abdominal distension and death.

Other conditions include torsion, which causes an organ or body part to twist on itself, cutting off blood circulation in koalas. As well, koalas can suffer from a condition where part of the intestine telescopes into another section, potentially leading to a blockage. This is a surgical emergency.

The federal government’s Koala Disease Risk Assessment lists only ten “ hazards” which include chlamydia, koala retrovirus, heat stress, predator attack trauma, thermal burn trauma, cryptococcus, motor vehicle trauma, neoplasia ( cancers), kidney failure, and sarcoptic mange.

Sarcoptic mange is caused by a parasitic mite and causes intense itching; skin lesions from scratching that can lead to secondary bacterial or fungal infections; lesions on the face, chin, stomach, limbs, and paws; a thickening of the skin crust; emaciation; and death. Mange is highly contagious and a significant threat to koala populations.

Chlamydia is well known for causing infertility, wet bottom, eye disease, blindness and incredible pain. Blind koalas usually starve to death. When the bladder is infected, it can become so inflamed and swollen that the koala continually passes blood.

Koalas near Portland in Victoria, where the giant Alcoa smelter emits fluoride, suffer from fluorosis. Fluoride toxicity causes bone calcium to be slowly replaced by minerals. Koalas develop lumps and bumps on the outside of bones that press on nerves, causing extreme pain. Teeth tend to deteriorate badly, which inhibits the koalas’ ability to eat, causing emaciation, starvation and death.

More than a thousand koalas shot in aerial operation

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In Victoria, thousands of koalas are killed every year due to vehicle strikes. Thousands are displaced each year when the blue gum plantations are harvested, with confused koalas crossing roads used by logging trucks as they try to find habitat. Many koalas end up with broken bones, and orphaned babies are left behind. Cows and dogs often attack.

Dog attacks are horrific and a major cause of koala mortality. Koalas attacked by dogs suffer extensive trauma, shock, blood loss, organ damage, internal bleeding, fractures, and bacterial infections. Dog attacks on koalas cause dreadful injuries and are responsible for high mortality. In NSW, 75 per cent of dog attacks on koalas are fatal.

The CSIRO koala monitoring program estimates that the national koala population is now between 729,000 and 918,000. A truly dramatic increase from the previous year of 224,000 – 524,000.

In fact, biologically impossible. Activists wonder if the inflated estimates are better described as propaganda.

Over the last decade, governments have allocated nearly $1 billion to research, with minimal funding for studies on the impacts of habitat loss. If these funds had been spent on creating koala refuges and protecting core habitat, the result would have been a significant boost to koala survival.

Population estimates in every state rely on many different methodologies, with the most popular used to make the highest predictions.

There’s no global scientific evidence demonstrating that a species deprived of habitat and legal protection, and suffering from diseases and the impacts of climate change, including drought and floods, as well as from forestry, fossil fuel projects, and massive urbanisation resulting from unprecedented population growth, can thrive.

Australian wildlife cruelty is out of control

Horrific, sadistic wildlife cruelty is out of control in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.

The suffering of koalas is a national scandal. Australia’s state and federal governments are committing crimes against nature in consistently refusing to listen to a deeply concerned public, the scientific community and conservation organisations.

When did eradicating the koala become policy and why?

The ongoing efforts to ensure biodiversity loss remains firmly censored by governments, given Australia’s appalling mammal loss record, demonstrate an urgent need for a Royal Commission which results in decisive action. International organisations such as the United Nations Environmental Programme need to be advised of Australia’s ongoing delinquency.