The Koala is functionally Extinct.

[rareboy]

Well done humans.

There are now too few left to support a healthy population.

We won't be satisfied until all the wild species are gone, will we?

https://blog.therainforestsite.grea...4wRoS8uPfuZvitIf8A7m2s1L6U99wPWMLyMPO35VmMAic

 

[gsdx]

I guess it's more important to be rich.

Very sad indeed.

And I bet the people who are driving them to extinction don't even know they're not bears.

 

[Cormac135]

Don't they give you thrush ?

But still, they're cute as fuck, you'd have thought the Aussies would have had this in hand.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess it's more important to be rich.

Very sad indeed.

And I bet the people who are driving them to extinction don't even know they're not bears.

They're not ?

 

[NotHardUp1]

I certainly hope the Aussies are on the forum. It would be a pity to waste a shaming without the perpetrators here to be derided effectively.

“Australia is a big country, there are koalas all over the place and some of them are doing fine,” biologist Christine Adams-Hosking of the University of Queensland told New Scientist. “You can’t just make that statement broad-brush.”

More likely, “at the rate of habitat clearing that is going on, we are going to see increased local population extinctions,” she said.

WRONG!

It's pretty obvious that there isn't room for professionals to disagree about this. Just because she's Australian and a biologist doesn't give her leeway to deny those who know better.

Thank God for refinement of terms so we can recognize extinction when it hasn't actually happened, lest we miss it. The 80,000 that remain should be closely supervised so that none of them are allowed to enjoy the time they have left. It's solemn.

 

[NotHardUp1]

By comparison, the Giant Panda was down to 1,111 individuals in the wild. Now that they number just under 1,900, they are no longer deemed "endangered" by the WWF.

Like the koala, they survive on a very narrow diet and have a low birth rate and low survival rate. Evolution itself is stacked against specialists like this.

The fact that Giant Pandas have turned with much lower numbers suggests it is not too late for a population of 80,000 that isn't being hunted or eaten or carted away to pet trade.

 

[Kahaih]

. . . .
. The 80,000 that remain should be closely supervised so that none of them are allowed to enjoy the time they have left. . . . .

I think 'enjoy' is pretty much in line with 'sad' and 'happy' being strictly human emotions, but they may enjoy performing in a bit of koala porn. Who's to say for sure?

I'd watch. Strictly out of curiosity, mind.

 

[NotHardUp1]

As much as I like to support the uniqueness of man as a species, I won't at the expense of not only Mammalia but also Aves.

It might be said that trained animals are often conditioned to exhibit behaviors that evoke human emotions, but there is increasingly undeniable evidence that parrots, canines, felines, porpoises, bears, primates, and several others clearly experience joy, most definitely understand sadness and even shame, and surprisingly, several are now proven to practice intentional deception and/or subterfuge.

YouTube is replete with all the evidence you could want of animals expressing emotions.

 

[mikey3000]

80,000? I think there are a lot more endangered animals then that.

 

[Dominus]

The article says there are 80k left. That's plenty to keep the species alive.

There have been quite a few species that underwent population bottleneck and habe rebounded. For example, at one point there were only 30 northern elephant seals a hundred years ago. Now there are hundreds of thousands.

 

[Telstra]

The only solution is to grow more gum tree.
Stop complaining, Canada and other countries should grow gum trees and breed some Koalas.
Thats the solution.

 

[rareboy]

^ It is all about habitat.

No one is making more habitat for the koalas.

- - - Updated - - -

80,000? I think there are a lot more endangered animals then that.

You didn't read the article did you. You never do.

 

[gsdx]

^ It is all about habitat.

Indeed. Try living in a city where people keep tearing down the buildings and don't put any back up again.

 

[Alistair]

80,000? I think there are a lot more endangered animals [strike]then[/strike] than that.

Sorry, that was making my head hurt

 

[Latimer]

By comparison, the Giant Panda was down to 1,111 individuals in the wild. Now that they number just under 1,900, they are no longer deemed "endangered" by the WWF.

Like the koala, they survive on a very narrow diet and have a low birth rate and low survival rate. Evolution itself is stacked against specialists like this.

The fact that Giant Pandas have turned with much lower numbers suggests it is not too late for a population of 80,000 that isn't being hunted or eaten or carted away to pet trade.

Cute = greater chance of survival. If pandas weren't cute no one would give a fuck.

 

[rareboy]

Cuteness won't guarantee survival. If that were the case there would be a million.

It requires habitat and Australia is ravaging and depleting the Koala habitat. And new habitat isn't being created. It is a law of diminishing range for the Koala.

But I suppose that not until the species is down to a few thousand will anyone care...and even then...as long as there are a few hundred breeding pairs in zoos and lots of pics on the net...most people will figure that it is all fine.