“Extreme drought, ferocious bushfires and urban development could make koalas extinct within seven years, environmentalists are warning,” in an article in new online journal The Brisbane Times.
“Alarms about the demise of the iconic and peculiar animal, which sleeps about 20 hours per day and eats only the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, have been raised before.
“But Deborah Tabart, chief executive officer of the Australia Koala Foundation, believes the animal’s plight is as bad as she has seen it in her 20 years as a koala advocate.”
I don’t know.
I reckon Debbie might be exaggerating.
In fact, it might well be concluded that the economics of conservation in Australia currently favour ignorance and failure. I’ve written that before: http://www.ipa.org.au/files/57-2-arekoalasindecline.pdf
And that was before I visited Gunnedah, ‘The Koala Capital of the World’: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001916.html.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The only times I have ever felt like shooting a Koala is when I hear or read the crap emanating from the mouths of the Tabarts of this world. Any animal associated with people like that needs to be eradicated.
But truth to tell, the Koalas are probably sick to death of them too.
Any life form that can sleep 20 hours a day must work for the government. If your Koalas die out, you can borrow those in our zoo. I’m waiting for some environmentalist to defend the preservation of fleas and mosquitos.
The AKF has destroyed any credibility, that it may nce have aspired to, through its actions and statements over the years. This latest outrageous statement on the koala is just one more in a long line of blatant lying to increase its funding.
In the late 1990’s they announced that there were only 15,000 koala’s left in NSW, then after surveying the Pilliga, they announced that there were 17,000 koala’s in the Pilliga.
The AKF has made an art form out of predicting the demise of the koala, why should any one ever believe anything that they say?
Koala activism is flourishing on the Tilligerry Peninsula
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/hkps/index.html
They have a member on council who tries to stop further development if it encroaches on koala friendly habitat.
http://www.portstephens.local-e.nsw.gov.au/environment/1274/1324.html
In the mid-1980s, when I was appointed to a job in the Dept of Conservation and Land Mangement in WA, I came for the first time into professional contact with the research scientists from the WA Wildlife Research Centre. I found them to be good scientists and good blokes, well-informed about national wildlife issues and deeply committed to wildlife conservation and management programs. Some of them were a bit too green for my taste, but mostly this was due to the fact that none of them had worked with foresters before and had a very negative image of forestry derived from the propaganda of the local environmentalists. None of this surprised me. What did amaze me was their uniform condemnation of the campaign being run by the koala conservation mob in the eastern states. This was regarded by wildlife scientists themselves as misleading, as causing un-needed community alarm and skewing funding towards a species which was not endangered and away from species which genuinely were. 30 years later it seems nothing much has changed.
Does anyone know that if the Koala foundation people are worried about the impact on koalas of large high intensity bushfires, are they advocating programes of mild patchy prescribed burning as a measure to conserve koalas?
Roger Underwood
On Macleay Island in Moreton Bay the Koala Kretins were instrumental in getting roadside signs put in at some expense to warn drivers of the presence of Koalas. The only problem was that there are no Koalas on the island and very few feed trees as most of the “land” is subject to regular innundation.
But that didn’t stop them spending the money anyway as it was deemed to be “educational”.
I rarely agree with Marohasy but she is right on this one. Some populations of Koalas might be in trouble but overall they are doing fine. They are probably far more numerous now than they were when Aborigines hunted them.
Indeed in certain places Koalas should be culled through shooting as they are damaging forests. None of that needlessly expensive sterilisation or euthanasia crap.
ps. How about the Koala Konservation Kouncil?
From what I’ve heard, if Koalas don’t eat eucalyptus leaves, they become angry, vicious carnivores.
So if eucalyptus disappeared first, Koalas might survive by eating other fauna. If the eucalyptus remained, the Koalas would be too “mellow” to worry about things.
Dude, hey, you’re like, you know, disappearing.
Dude, hey, be real. Pass me a leaf. I can hardly see you either.
burp.
Since when did koalas become ‘iconic’, was it the ABC news or was it the Jap tourists?
They used to hunt them for the skins, great fur and in good demand in Europe. That was before the EU went green and used synthetic fibres and central heating to keep the climate at bay.
It should be part of the school curriculum, how to use a gun, to hunt, skin and utilise the animal, add value to an otherwise useless dozy dopey leaf muncher. Not turn into a downloadable image to be worshipped.
For goodness sakes, its just an animal, are we now becoming animists?
1. Around the height of the enactment of the US act to preserve wild horses and burros an eminent professor of range science was asked what he would do if he retired. He replied that he would start yet another society for preserving wild horses and burros and that he thought he would retire quite comfortably.
2. Having been taught by the koala clan how well camouflaged they are and how hard to see even when not in active avoidance mode, I wonder how good these supposed koala numbers are.
3. It also looks like their diet might be much wider than just gum trees.
4. Anyone like to comment on the place of water in their distribution?
rog,
Of course we’re becoming animists. Having forsaken God, we’re worshiping animals.
And if you don’t like that, the government will take your money and spend it on animal-worship anyhow.
You’re an animist whether you like it or not.
Koalas have been known to eat camphor laurel when there is nothing else worth eating, like when the Sparks and Wildfires take over perfectly good forests and turn them into broadscale infernos.
The irony in all this is that a forest can be managed in a way that can at least quadruple the Koala carrying capacity.
The even bigger irony is that the dumb boofheads who make so much noise about protecting them haven’t a clue how to do it. And I certainly have no intention of telling them how until we get all our property rights back.
It is also possible to make a tree so delicious to Koalas that they will completely defoliate it, repeatedly, until the tree dies. Pity.