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Young World
Koala care
COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
PHOTO: AFP
AUSTRALIA'S ICON: Facing the threat to their habitat.
Australia's iconic koalas face an uncertain future as their fragmented habitats shift in response to climate change, fire, and drought, an ecologist said. For example, St. Bees Island off the coast of Queensland is changing from "a koala-friendly forest to a koala-unfriendly forest," said Alistair Melzer, an ecologist at Central Queensland University Koalas exclusively eat the leaves of eucalyptus trees. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus, but the marsupials prefer the leaves of only a handful. As the favoured eucalyptus species disappear from the forest, St. Bees Island will eventually become unsuitable for the koalas and the resident population will likely go extinct. Until recently, the St. Bees population had been considered unusually stable, and was intended to serve as a model for helping struggling populations elsewhere in Australia.
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