Australia’s koalas are in trouble. The question is how much.
Australia’s iconic marsupial is in trouble. The question may just be exactly how bad the country’s koala situation has become.
Nearly a third of Australia’s koalas were wiped out in just the past three years, according to new figures released by a conservation group, though some experts say real numbers are hard to establish.
What’s not in doubt, they agree, is that the animal’s population is in decline as Australia confronts climate change and other issues.
The country has lost an estimated 30 percent of its koalas since 2018 as a result of wildfires, drought, heat waves and land clearing, the Australian Koala Foundation said in a release Monday.
The nonprofit conservation group urged the government to do more about what it called a “disturbing trend.”
It estimates the koala population to now be in the range of 32,000-58,000 — down from an estimated 46,000-82,000 in 2018.
It said the worst decline was seen in the southeastern state of New South Wales. Where it estimates the numbers have dropped by as much as 41 percent. The foundation said every region across Australia saw a decline in population.
The conservation group doesn’t explicitly state how the data was to obtained. But said it’s the first organization to estimate koala numbers across the country. NBC News has reached out to the foundation for comment and for details on its methodology.
