The Functional Extinction of the Koala
Earlier this year, the Australian Koala Foundation reported only 80,000 koalas – an iconic Australian animal – exist in the wild, making the threatened species “functionally extinct”, which has led some to challenge the severity of this endangered status. Nonetheless, the devastating bushfires that have ravaged the Queensland and New South Wales landscape has definitely exacerbated the concern that koalas, currently classified as Vulnerable status, might be in danger of disappearing from Australian landscape. Drive talked to Dr. Christine Adams-Hosking, Honorary Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, on koala conservation efforts in light of the current bushfire season, and by wider inference, climate change on their ecosystems and natural habitat.
