Ajooni, a baby koala, weighed no more than a mango when rescued from a Sydney road where a car hit its mother, the leading cause of marsupial mortality in Australia along with chlamydia and bush clearing . Over the past two years, Emma Meadows and other Wires volunteers have rescued 40 koalas from road accidents, but the number left for dead is likely much higher.
Australia is currently home to only an estimated 95,000 to 524,000 koalas, down from millions before the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century. East coast marsupials were officially listed as endangered by the Australian government in February 2022.
High extinction rate
“I truly believe we are heading towards extinction. I don’t know if we can go back, I’m afraid it’s too late.” confie Emma Meadows. “Our grandchildren, or at least their grandchildren, may see koalas in a zoo, if they are lucky,” says Annabelle Olsson, director of the Wildlife Health and Conservation Hospital at the University of Sydney, who regularly examines koalas, particularly those rescued from road accidents.
Scientists estimate that Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world, with around 100 unique species of the country’s flora and fauna having been wiped out over the past 123 years. Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declared that her country was the “world capital of mammal extinction”. Although there are rules regarding the protection of their habitats, the bush where koalas live continues to be cleared.
Chlamydia vaccine
Another threat to koalas: chlamydia. In the Sydney region, while there are areas free of koalas from this bacteria responsible for a sexually transmitted infection, scientists fear that these pockets will one day disappear. Chlamydia was first observed in these animals around fifty years ago, and decimated entire populations in the following decades. The bacteria can cause blindness, bladder infections, infertility and even death.
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Samuel Phillips, a researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast, is part of a team working on a vaccine project. They vaccinated and monitored some 165 koalas for ten years and found that the affected marsupials not only developed chlamydia later in life, but also had their risk of dying from it reduced by 64%.
In Queensland (north-east), a vaccine trial coupled with road traffic control and protection against predators measures was so successful that a population of koalas was doomed to extinction within ten years. is starting to grow again. “It’s a really positive story”book M. Phillips.
The researcher warns, however, that more action is needed to tackle other drivers of the decline in marsupial numbers, particularly habitat destruction. “We can continue to protect these small populations, but if we don’t increase the size of their habitat and protect it”they will disappear, he says.
