• Australia listed koalas along much of its east coast as “endangered” after the native marsupial’s habitats were hit by prolonged drought, bushfires and developers cutting down trees.

• Koalas in the states of New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory will be listed as “endangered” versus their previous designation of “vulnerable”.

• The koala, a globally recognised symbol of Australia’s unique wildlife, had been listed as “vulnerable” on the eastern coast just a decade earlier.

• Scientists and academics have been warning that the iconic Australian mammal could become extinct unless the government immediately intervened to protect them and their habitat.

• Australia has lost about 30 per cent of its koalas over the past three years, the Australian Koala Foundation said last year, with numbers estimated to have dropped to less than 58,000 from more than 80,000 in 2018 with the worst decline in New South Wales, where the numbers have dropped by 41 per cent.

• A World Wide Fund for Nature study estimated bushfires in late 2019 and early 2020 had killed or injured more than 60,000 koalas, when flames burned more than 17 million hectares, an area nearly half the size of Germany.

• But even before the fires, koala habitats had been in rapid decline due to land clearing for agriculture, urban development, mining and forestry. Koalas dwell mostly in eucalypt forests in eastern states and on the coastal fringes.

• The Australian government is providing more than 74 million Australian dollars to protect the iconic Koala and ensure its long-term health and resilience.

Facts on koalas:

• Koalas are recognised around the world as one of Australia’s most iconic animals.

• Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) are native Australian tree-dwelling marsupials with predominantly grey coloured fur. They live in a range of temperate, sub-tropical and tropical forest, woodland and semi-arid communities dominated by eucalypt species.

• It is medium-sized marsupial with a stocky body with large rounded ears and sharp claws.

• Koalas in some regions face increasing threats from urban expansion, disease, habitat loss, vehicle strike, and predation by dogs, and from their susceptibility to drought and climate change. However, the health, size and status of koala populations differ significantly across Australia.

• Males generally are larger than females and there is a gradient in body weight from north to south across their range, with larger individuals in the south and smaller individuals in the north.

• The average weight of males is 6.5 kg in Queensland, compared with 12 kg in Victoria. Koalas in the north tend to have shorter, silver-grey fur, whereas those in the south have longer, thicker, brown-grey fur.

• There is only one species of koala. Differences in physical features such as fur colour and body size are attributed to different environmental conditions rather than subspecies differentiation.

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