Birth control considered for Australia's koalas
Copyright 2001 Reuters
November 6, 2001
Story by Gary Cox
CANBERRA - Koala lovers from around the world lobbied Australia yesterday to protect the cuddly marsupial, saying the national icon may even have to be put on the pill to stop it from eating itself out of house and home.
The eucalypt-leaf chewing koala may not be an endangered animal in Australia, with estimates of at least 100,000 living along the country's eastern coastal region, but encroaching civilisation is threatening its food supply and habitat.
Environmentalists at the annual Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) conference in Canberra said whoever won the country's November 10 election needed to legislate an end to landclearing, which threatens the native animal's forest habitat.
AKF executive director Deborah Tabart said the koala's main source of food and shelter, eucalypt forests, were being cleared at such a rate that contraceptive injections were being considered to temporarily limit birth rates.
"I am apprehensive about contraception because it saps so much money we could be using on trees, but it may be needed to help while we plant and re-generate the trees they eat," Tabart told Reuters.
The foundation estimates the koala population has dropped to around 100,000 from several million about 100 years ago.
Millions of koalas were shot in the 1920s for their fur. Loss of habitat and civilian sprawl have taken a toll more recently. Cars and dogs kill up to 4,000 koalas a year.
Tabart said the alternative to putting koalas on the pill was to convince Australia's government to control landclearing in prime koala habitat - an issue that has been buried by national security and immigration concerns during the election campaign.
Australia's two main political forces, the ruling conservative coalition and centre-left opposition Labor Party, have both released landclearing policies worth more than A$100 million ($51 million) but neither has mentioned the marsupial.
The foundation has already urged the government to declare the koala a species of "national significance" and give federal authorities the power to step in - as it would with endangered species - if koala habitat were threatened.
Tabart said an estimated 80 percent of koala habitat had been destroyed since white settlement of Australia 200 years ago.
"But (Environment Minister Robert) Hill has said no on both counts and dismissed our claims about the koala as unscientific," she added.
A spokeswoman for Hill said there was no need for extra legislation because laws in Australia's six states and two territories already protected the tourist's favourite animal.
"The most recent expert advice is that the koala is not endangered or threatened on a national basis, but if there was new evidence then we would investigate," she told Reuters. Labor's environment spokesman Nick Bolkus was not immediately available for comment.
Tabart said koala contraception, which can be injected into koalas to interrupt their reproductive cycle for up to two years, was a last resort because of its high cost - A$10 per shot.