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| © Photograph by Suzy Eszterhas, Minden Pictures A koala is pictured in Queensland, Australia. The iconic marsupials have an extensive habitat range along Australia’s eastern coast, where a large number of bushfires are burning. |
By Natasha Daly, National Geographic
Australia is in the midst of a catastrophic and unprecedented early
fire season. As dozens of bushfires rage up the country’s eastern coast,
from Sydney to Byron Bay, incinerating houses, forest, and even
marshland, one of Australia’s most iconic animals has taken center stage
in headlines.
Images of burned, dying koalas have emerged as a symbol of the fire’s
devastating toll. “They’re such helpless little things,” says Christine Adams-Hosking,
a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in
Australia. “A bird can fly, a kangaroo can hop very fast, but koalas are
so slow. They basically just get stuck where they are.”
The
plight of the defenseless animals has sparked a flurry of concern—and
confusion. Over the weekend, erroneous declarations that the animals
have lost most of their habitat and are “functionally extinct” made the
rounds in headlines and on social media, illustrating just how quickly
misinformation can spread in times of crisis.
Koalas are considered vulnerable to extinction—just
a step above endangered—and reports indicate that between 350 and a
thousand koalas have been found dead so far in fire-devastated zones of
northern New South Wales.
But, experts say, we are not looking at the death of a species—yet. “We’re not going to see koalas go extinct this fast,” says Chris Johnson,
professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Tasmania.
“Koala populations will continue to decline because of lots of
interacting reasons, but we’re not at the point where one event could
take them out.”
Here’s the current situation:
Why are koalas suffering so much in this fire season?
When it comes to fire, everything seems to be stacked against koalas.
Their only real defense is climbing higher into the eucalyptus trees
where they make their homes—little defense at all in a raging forest
fire.
Eucalyptus itself is some of the most fire-adapted
vegetation on Earth, able to sprout and grow anew in the immediate
aftermath of fires. In normal fire conditions, the flames wouldn’t
typically reach the top of the trees, leaving the koalas relatively
unscathed. The spike we’re seeing in koala deaths is an indicator that
something is wrong, says David Bowman, director of the Fire Center Research Hub at the University of Tasmania.
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| © Photograph by Nathan Edwards A female koala, named Anwen by her rescuers, receives treatment at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, Australia. She was burnt in a brushfire ravaging the area. |
The
scale of the current fires—largely a result of climate change and the
slow death of Aboriginal fire management methods—has no precedent,
according to Bowman. “They are burning at a particularly high
intensity,” he says.
Packed with oil, the trees are burning hot and fast, sometimes exploding and sending sparks yards in every direction.
It’s
only the spring in Australia. “In terms of then bushfire crisis, this
is the supporting act,” Bowman says. He worries that the situation will
be far worse come in January and February, as temperatures continue to
rise and drought is exacerbated.
How many koalas are left?
In 2016, experts estimated that there are about 329,000 koalas in Australia, which represents an average of a 24 percent decline in populations over the past three generations.
“It’s
very difficult to estimate koala populations, even at the best of
times,” Adams-Hosking says, because they have a very wide range across
eastern Australia, and are human-shy and found very high up in trees.
“Some populations are becoming locally extinct and others are doing just
fine.”
Koalas are threatened by land development, food
degradation (increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has diminished
the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves), drought, dog attacks, and
chlamydia. (Read more about the threats posed by cars and dogs.)
And,
yes, fire too. In certain areas that have been hard hit by fire, it’s
possible that local koala populations won’t recover, “but it’s too early
to tell,” says Adams-Hosking. “We’d need monitoring over several
years.”
Have the fires really decimated 80 percent of koala habitat?
No.
Koalas’ range is large, extending along Australia’s entire Eastern
coast. The recent bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland cover
about a million hectares, Fisher says (and some estimates indicate as
many as 2.5 million hectares), but the area of forest in eastern
Australia where koalas can live is more than 100 million hectares.
Furthermore, just because an area has been affected by fire, says Grant Williamson,
a postdoctoral fellow specializing in landscape ecology at the
University of Tasmania, “does not mean it has been ‘destroyed’ and is no
longer suitable for occupation by koalas.”
Are koalas ‘functionally extinct?’
“Functionally
extinct” refers to when a species no longer has enough individual
members to produce future generations or play a role in the ecosystem. (Learn more: What is extinction? The answer is complicated.)
The fires may have killed many koalas “but this is not enough to change their overall threat status as a species,” Fisher says.
The
headlines claiming that koalas are functionally extinct appear to be
based on a claim from a koala conservation group earlier in 2019.
Scientists disputed it then and continue to dispute it now: “It is threatened in some parts of its range and not in others,” says Diana Fisher, associate professor in the school of biological sciences at the University of Queensland.
For
some local populations of koalas in the fire zones, especially in
northern New South Wales, the impact has likely been “catastrophic,”
Adams-Hosking says. A third of koalas in the fire zones there may have
perished.
But other populations, such as those in the southern
state of Victoria, have not been affected by these fires at all,
according to Johnson.
So what’s next?
“It’s not
looking good for koalas at all, even before the fires,” says
Adams-Hosking. While they have government protections—it’s illegal to
kill a koala, for instance—their habitat is highly vulnerable, she says.
“Very little of koala habitat is designated as protected area. Almost
nothing.” She argues that the government needs to put the environment
before economic growth. “Until that political will kicks in—and in
Australia, it hasn’t—it’s not going to get any better for koalas.”
In the meantime, The Koala Hospital of Port Macquarie,
located about 250 miles north of Sydney in one of the most
fire-affected zones, is actively rescuing and treating koalas. To date,
they’ve treated at least 22, according to the New York Times.
Adams-Hosking and and David Bowman, the landscape fire expert, both
argue that in addition to protecting land, it’s vital to start looking
at rewilding and relocating koalas. “We’ve got to get with the program
and start adapting, says Bowman. “If we want koalas, we’ve got to look
after them. We need to step up.”
