Climate Change Could Wipe Out Australia’s Koalas

Climate change is one of the factors causing koalas to diminish in number in Australia, according to a new study issued on November 10th 2009.  Bushfires and development are two other contributory factors, it said, forecasting the prospect of outright extinction for this iconic Australian animal within around the next three decades, unless action is taken.

Before now, it was thought that there were approximately 100,000 koalas living in Australia.  New estimates have now put the true population figure as low as 43,000.

“The koalas are missing everywhere we look”, Deborah Tabart of the Australian Koala foundation stated.  “It's really no tree, no me.  If you keep cutting down trees you don't have any koalas.”

Koala Population

According to the foundation, deforestation is one factor powering the decrease in the koala population.  Another is the impact that higher temperatures are having on eucalyptus leaves, which is what koalas eat in the main.  Dried-out leaves, it said, lack the nutritional content normally found in this food source and, as a consequence, the koalas are suffering from malnutrition. 

The foundation has been gathering in data on koalas from close to 2,000 individual sites and 80,000 trees.  In one location which was thought to be home to as many as 20,000 of the animals in 1999, not one was found during a four-day long search that involved eight people.

Climate Change: Australia

Tabart and her colleagues are now calling on the Australian government to officially recognise the koala as a species that is at risk, in a country that – according to climatologists –is already feeling the effects of climate change.  Their target is the TSSC – the Threatened Species Steering Committee – but according to this organisation’s chairman, it may be some months yet before an official ‘threatened’ tag is added to the koala’s profile.

“There's a number of species which are charismatic and emotionally charged”, news agency AFP quoted Bob Beeton as having stated.  “We don't consider that.”

“We'd consider the koala with the same level of diligence and dedication as if it were the death adder”, Beeton was said to have added.

The TSSC was pressed to assign the term ‘endangered’ to the koala three years ago, but did not do so, on the grounds that there were probably thousands of them still left.

See also:

Arctic Polar Bears Shrinking as Climate Changes

Nature Affected by Climate Change