Koala glut

last updated 8 January 2015

Kangaroo Island, Australia

Hungry koalas on Kangaroo Island are gobbling up eucalyptus leaves so fast that they will soon deforest the island and have nothing to eat, conservationists said this week. Koalas, which look like teddy bears, were introduced to the island about 100 years ago, and now there are 30,000 of them. Efforts to sterilize them or relocate them have failed, and conservationist Matt Turner said the only way to prevent mass starvation was to thin their numbers. But tourism officials will not allow that. “When you start talking about culling native wildlife, particularly cute and cuddly ones, there is a backlash,” Turner said.