Koalas At Risk From Extinction

It seems Australia's cuddliest creatures are now at risk. They are dying out apparently due to global warming depleating the supply of nutrients in the Eucalyptus leaves these animals feed on. Koalas are among the World's fussiest eaters, and certain individuals will only eat certain varieties of these leaves. If that tree dies out, that koala will die too of starvation. I am the same way, I just discovered I am diabetic, and everyone tells me if I want to live, I need to change my eating habits and consume more healthy foods. I cannot do it because I find most vegetables disgusting!!! I only like peas, carrots, corn, potatoes and sometimes celery. But I cannot make a meal of that!! And I was brought up that dinner has to include meat and bread. I'd personally rather die than switch to a vegetarian diet!! But anyway, this was the article I got from Discovery News.

P.S.: Ignore the fact the title refers to them as koala "bears"!! They are NOT bears! It always chaffs my ass to hear people calling them that!!!

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/11/koala-bear-endanger.html


Koala Bears at Risk for Extinction, Group Says
Julie Shingleton, AFP

Dec. 11, 2008 -- Australia's iconic koala will become extinct in some areas of the country if the federal government does not take urgent action, conservationists have warned.

A group of Australian scientists will meet with government officials in Canberra on Friday in a bid to hammer out a national koala conservation strategy to keep key populations of the animals from dying out.

Less than 100,000 koalas are left in the country, compared to millions before they were heavily hunted for fur in the 1920s, said Deborah Tabart from the Australian Koala Foundation.

"The population of koalas in southeast Queensland has decreased from 10,000 to less than 4,000 in a decade," Tabart said.

The population in the southeast Queensland area known as the Koala Coast has fallen by at least 26 percent to 4,611 animals since a 1996-1999 survey as development encroached on their natural habitats, she said.

"We know that there are even less now, in the order of 3,800," Tabart said.

Kat Miller of the World Wildlife Fund also warned that koalas could be on their way to extinction along with several other Australian species."There are more than 1,700 federally-listed threatened populations of animals in Australia. There is an extinction crisis in Australia. The koala may well be the next one to go downhill."

The Australian Koala Foundation is urging Environment Minister Peter Garrett to declare the southeast Queensland koala population as critically endangered under law in a bid to protect their habitats from further developments.

"This is the most important thing Minister Garrett and his department can do right now to show he is serious about saving the koala," said Tabart."These declines just cannot continue if we still want to see our beautiful icon here."

Climate change has also played in the decline as it altered the nutritional make-up of their staple food, gumtree leaves, Tabart said.

Post mortems of around 700 koalas in southeast Queensland have found that most were "wasted" when they died.

"The impact of climate change on the nutritional value of eucalyptus leaves has been proven to affect koalas," she said.

Garrett has said he had charged Australia's Threatened Species Scientific Committee with assessing the risk to the koala but warned that he needed to await the committee's report before he could act.

"This is a clear indication of how seriously the Australian government is considering reports from the Australian Koala Foundation and others on diminishing koala numbers in some regions," the minister said.