Koalas already were on the brink in Australia. Then came the devastating bushfires
As bushfires continue to ravage large swaths of Australia, there have been growing concerns over the extinction status of koalas. On Dec. 27, Australia’s Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley said that almost a third of koalas may have died in the New South Wales region as a result of the fires.
“Up to 30% of the koalas in the region may have been killed, because up to 30% of their habitat has been destroyed. We’ll know more when the fires are calmed down and a proper assessment can be made,” Ley told ABC’s AM Radio.
In November, a Forbes article on the status on koalas claimed that the fires have destroyed 80% of their habitat and made the species “functionally extinct.”
But experts say that while koalas are considered vulnerable and their population is on the decline, they’re not considered endangered and a single event — such as the fires — isn’t enough to wipe out all of the fuzzy marsupials that have come to symbolize the country.
They do, however, need our help.
“We’re not going to see koalas go extinct this fast,” Chris Johnson, professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Tasmania, told National Geographic. “Koala populations will continue to decline because of lots of interacting reasons, but we’re not at the point where one event could take them out.”
Australia’s koala population was around 300,000 in 2016, according to experts. Koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales declined 42% between 1990 and 2010, according to the federal threatened species scientific committee, The Guardian reported.
Koalas face threats from human development and climate change, which have hindered their ability to survive the recent fires, according to the New York Times.
“They’re in a lot of trouble, and they need our care and our help if they’re going to survive,” Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the New York Times.
The fires also impacted koalas’ ability to survive in the wild. A photo posted on Facebook on Dec. 27 shows firefighters rescuing two koalas in Hawkesbury, New South Wales.
In addition, a video recently went viral of a woman who was willing to take the shirt off her back to help save a koala from the fires.
This story was originally published January 3, 2020 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Koalas already were on the brink in Australia. Then came the devastating bushfires."