Koalas look like death, attacks and hunger, as a blue gums in Victoria | Victoria was chopped off

Thousands of Koalas are sold every year, since Victoria Blue rubber plantations are interrupted, the overcrowding in nearby forests worsens and the risk of injuries and death in bush fires.

An estimated 42,500 koalas live in Blue rubber plantations in Southwest Victoria, as data show. Every year between 8,000 and 10,000 hectares of plantations are harvested, which makes thousands of Koalas homeless.

Scientists said the displaced animals crossed by timber cases. They moved to trees along the street reserves, neighboring properties and in the nearby forests, which they soon move out. Some emigrated in neighboring plantations, only to be sold again the following year.

“It is a rather stressful situation for Koalas,” said the ecologist at Deakin University Dr. Desley Whisson, who specializes in the Koala management. “The Blue rubber plantations are interrupted and these koalas have to find somewhere.”

Every year, thousands of Koalas were probably driven by plantations, she said, based on her density in plantations and the extent of the logging.

Koalas are endangered in New South Wales, Queensland and in the Australian Capital Territory, but there are not enough trees in Southwest Victoria and South Australia to maintain the Koala population.

The CSIRO estimates that the national Koala population is between 224,000 and 524,000.

Whisson said Koalas, who were driven out of blue gum plantations, already increased high densities in nearby trees and forests and made the decline of the nearby local vegetation such as Manna Gum. Increasing, especially in combination with drought or fire, could ultimately lead to social problems – mass hunger and death -, with land managers and animal builders who deal with the consequences.

A licensed Koala Shelter operator in the southwest, which was not mentioned, said that it helped up to 450 sick or injured animals per year. She said that displaced people were sometimes still in trees that were fake and left with broken bones or orphaned babies. Others were attacked by cows or dogs.

She said some Koalas frozen in the lights of lumberjack trucks while crossing streets. “The amount of street kill is just terrible,” said the supervisor. “They were in a huge, big forest all their lives. And then it suddenly torn around them.”

A 2023 study on reported deaths by Wild Koala in Southeast Queensland showed that vehicles were responsible for about half (1,431) of all deaths.

The Victorian government published its Koala strategy in May 2023. They described Koala welfare problems in connection with plantations, but did not focus on long-term solutions.

“At the moment, there are no cost-effective management techniques that would be acceptable for the community or that clear goals for the management of Koalas in Blue rubber plantations,” the strategy says.

Victoria's Environment Department said it was working with animal welfare groups and experts to ensure the sustainability of the Koala population, and has invested USD 3.3 million in Koala management and research.

“Victoria is lucky enough to have a large Koala population, but in some population groups there is threats such as illnesses, climate change and poor genetic diversity,” said a spokesman for Guardian Australia.

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Dr. Kita Ashman, ecologist at WWF Australia, said that the plantations had deeply changed the landscape since it was founded in the 1990s and 2000s.

She said that the Blue rubber leaves represented a nutritious source of food that made it possible for the animals to achieve much higher numbers than normal, but nobody treated the effects correctly. The plantation industry had to obtain a permit before it bothered Koalas, included Koala spotters and kept at least nine trees for every animal in the harvest, but there was little effort to take the fate of repressed, she said.

“Basically, we plant this SmorgasBord of plantations in which Koalas deals, feed, drag on,” she said.

However, Asman said that the answer should not be getting rid of plantations because they are an important alternative to the local Forest Protocollation Industry.

Whisson said it was an “evil problem” that would probably worsen. But she said there were solutions on the landscape scale that could improve the situation. This included the Blue Gum industry to leave part of every plantation for Koalas, to stay or to help restore the permanent habitat. You could also support animal keepers and animal hospitals that deal with the consequences.

She said that the industry could consider increasing an alternative tree species in the long term that was less tasty for Koalas than Blue Gum.

The Koala ecologist Dr. Rolf Schopploth from Central Queensland University said it was a “solvable problem”.

“The real problem is the lack of connectivity [of nature] And not to cope with the habitat of Koala properly, ”he said.

Schobbloth said everyone involved should be involved in the search for solutions and that the state and state governments would have to recognize mistakes – and it would require considerable efforts and funds to remedy them.

“We need open, honest discussion,” he said, “to ensure that our Koalas – which are a flagship species – are saved.”