Cold, Cold hearts kill koalas

News source: The Courier Mail 30 July 2007
By Brian Williams

Pip the koala is lucky. He was saved by workers at the Australian Wildlife Hospital after his mother was brought in ill with disease.

Hospital volunteer Wanda Grabowski said koalas were coming under increasing stress from drought, cold weather and clearing of vegetation.

As they entered the breeding season, risks increased dramatically as the marsupials started moving from tree to tree to mate. This put them at risk of attacks from dogs or being hit by cars.

The hospital... had 40 to 50 koalas and numbers showed no signs of easing, Ms Grabowski said.

"Eucalypt leaves have low nutritional value anyway and with the drought and clearing, it means some koalas are basically starving," she said. "They are coming in emaciated with low body weight and this means in such a stressed condition they are likely to contract disease."

Ms Grabowski said clearing for urban expansion was continuing at such a rate that the hospital had received several koalas that had been knocked out of trees by bulldozers.

Other animals brought in included possums, reptiles and birds.