News in Science

Koalas added to threatened species list

Split listing Koalas in eastern Australia are being classified as vulnerable and added to the threatened species list.

Koala numbers have dropped by 40 per cent in Queensland and by a third in New South Wales over the past 20 years.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke says it is not a national listing because there are large koala populations in South Australia and Victoria.

"In Victoria and South Australia, koalas have actually been in such high numbers they've been eating themselves out of habitat. There's what you call population control measures going on there ... like sterilisation," he said.

"But in places like NSW and Queensland, their numbers have been taking a massive hit."

Burke says a species is usually not considered endangered if it is bountiful in some locations.

"On a species as iconic as the koala, I really don't think I could have credibly said to the Australian people, 'oh don't worry, you might not have any more in Queensland the way things are going, but you can go to South Australia if you want to see one'," he says.

Concerns over numbers

The Australian Koala Foundation says the protection does not go far enough and the Federal Government has underestimated the danger koalas face.

Foundation CEO Deborah Tabart says she believes the government has been misinformed that there are 200,000 koalas in the wild.

"At the moment we're still of the opinion that there's not that many koalas, less than 100,000. Victoria still needs to be protected," she says.

"I'm delighted with this because it is going to slow things down, but it's not going to save our koalas."

Professor Chris Johnson, an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow in the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania, says the decision to create a split listing for the koala is unusual but sensible.

"The problems facing koalas are very different across its geographic range. In the south, some populations are over-abundant and are damaging their habitat. In the north, koala populations are in decline for a multitude of reasons," says Johnson.

"We will need to think about the differing needs of northern and southern koalas almost as if they are two different species. Therefore it makes sense that they be given separate listings, and it is a reasonable assessment of the evidence to class the northern population as 'vulnerable'."