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BRISBANE, Australia — After two days of valuable discussions of ethics, climate, corporations and more at a Global Integrity Summit here, I was happy to break away to meet one of this country’s extraordinary and iconic marsupials — the koala.

Staff at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in a nearby suburb filled me in on conservation issues affecting this eucalyptus-munching marsupial, including a strain of chlamydia, possibly originating in livestock, that has spread in some areas south of here, prompting scientists to propose this week that culling may be necessary in infected populations.

The sanctuary has existed since 1927 and draws about 250,000 visitors a year from around Australia and the world. [Here’s a resident male doing some mating season bellowing to announce its size.] Mainly because of development pressure, the koala populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have been listed as vulnerable under federal law.

The species’ range has been deeply disrupted by habitat loss and fragmentation, as the Australia Zoo explains here:

Although not listed as endangered by any Australian state, the koala population has been devastated over the last hundred years and is currently under great threat due to urbanization and massive, uncontrolled habitat destruction. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that upwards of 80 percent of original koala habitat in Australia has been cleared since European settlement.

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On Australia’s south coast west of Melbourne, the koala population on Cape Otway — where the species was reintroduced in 1981 — outstripped the food supply (a favored koala delicacy, manna gum trees) in recent years, with hundreds of animals exhibiting signs of starvation. One cull of nearly 700 koalas was quietly carried out in 2013 and 2014 and created a stir when the news emerged last March.

Starting last month, Victoria wildlife officials began assessing 400 koalas there, with those that were ailing to be euthanized. About three dozen healthy koalas were selected for a test relocation effort.

Victoria’s koala population is mainly robust, with a unique set of conditions making Cape Otway a troubling exception, according to the website of the Victoria environmental agency:

Over-abundance of koalas at Cape Otway is a complex long-term issue brought about by their love of Manna Gums, their reluctance to change food source, favorable climatic conditions and an absence of predators. Koalas love of Manna Gum, and their intolerance to a rapid change in diet, results in them staying in bare trees rather than moving to another tree type, such as those found in the neighboring Great Otway National Park. Where populations of koalas are higher than sustainable levels, over-browsing and defoliation of favored food species leads to starvation and ultimately death.

It must be wrenching for the teams of veterinarians and wildlife scientists carrying out the assessment, and management, of such an extraordinary animal.

I was able briefly to hold Aster, a two-year-old male (in the picture with Mai Ueda) at the Lone Pine zoo, and watched for awhile as healthy males traded bellowing mating calls. They really are impossibly captivating.

I wish the koalas well — along with the officials, biologists and veterinarians who are trying to sustain them.

Here’s a video explainer on the Cape Otway operation from the Victoria environmental agency:

Addendum | Australia is having a debate about how to handle a charismatic and destructive interloper, the feral cat. The government is proposing a mass extermination.

The issues mirror those I’ve written about on American soil as bird and cat defenders clash. I’m with the birds.

Here’s a story in The Times: “Australia Defends Plan to Kill Millions of Feral Cats.”