Photo: Mark Evans / Getty Images
For: Real America News Updated 10 Feb 2022, 46: 50 pm EST
According to the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) climate change, deforestation, mining, agriculture and devastating forest fires are what have been destroying their population, especially in the states of New South Wales and neighboring Queensland.
Also, droughts, heat waves and lack of access to water have made it more difficult for its population to survive in recent years.
Therefore, the Government of Australia announced this Friday that the koalas that live in the east of the country will be considered endangered species, because their populations have been decimated.
The federal government has officially listed the koala as endangered. In years the species has gone from having no listing to vulnerable and now endangered. https://t.co/gWRclJKtrK
— Lisa Cox (@_LisaMCox) February 10, 2022
“Today I will elevate the protection of koalas in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland by listing them as endangered species, up from their previous status as vulnerable”, Environment Minister Sussan Ley said in a statement.
The measure does not affect the other two states with koalas, South Australia and Victoria, whose populations of these animals are not considered endangered.
The minister also indicated that under the National Environmental Law she will coordinate next week with the two state governments of New Wales from South and Queensland, as well as the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra, a recovery plan.
According to an official investigation by 2020, koalas could become extinct in eastern Australia by 2050 a as a result of the continuous destruction of their habitats and the increasingly frequent natural disasters that hit the region.
Although the official figures show 180,000 specimens in the east of the country, Deb Tabart, from the Koala Foundation, assured the local public broadcaster ABC that in reality they remain between 50,000 Y 80, specimens throughout the country.
“In 2019, just after the forest fires, Minister Ley brought us all together in a round table and gave him the koala habitat atlas of its entire geographic range, which has brought us 23 years to create”, said Tabart.
This indigenous animal of Australia, which also suffers from chlamydia that can cause death, has lost much of its habitat in Australia as a result of urban, agricultural and mining development, and also due to climate change, as well as the commercialization of their skins until the decade of 1930.
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), which in the aboriginal language means “without drinking” -alluding to because 90 percent of its hydration comes from eucalyptus leaves that it eats, is especially sensitive to any change in the environment.
The koala, which remains a few 20 hours a day dozing or resting and uses the remaining four hours to feed on the leaves of various species of eucalyptus was one of the biggest victims of the forest fires of the so-called “Black Summer” of the 2015-2020, who killed more than 22,000 specimens
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