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Here's hoping koalas get the protection they deserve and rebound from this. Heartbreaking. Koalas are adorable and beloved. Imagine how many less obvious (or "

Here's hoping koalas get the protection they deserve and rebound from this. Heartbreaking. Koalas are adorable and beloved. Imagine how many less obvious (or "gross") species in similar situations don't get articles written about them. That koala populations can plummet this far should be a clarion call about the state of things. Mirror: https://archive.is/cZkdM https://archive.is/cZkdM

TylerE 5y ago
Kaolas are lucky they look cute. They are an evolutionary dead end and actually nasty, nasty creatures.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 5y ago
  Nasty how?
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > They are an evolutionary dead end and actually nasty, nasty creatures. They're not the only ones.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  In what way are they nasty
  - isaacimagine 5y ago
    Look up what the young feed on.
    - dkdbejwi383 5y ago
      Poo, for anyone who is interested
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      Many animals eat poop for various reasons. For some because it's important to their digestive process (rabbits). For some, because of less important reasons (dogs).
      - soperj 5y ago
        I think all ruminants need to eat fecal matter to get the digestive enzymes needed to process the plant matter in their area.
        aerostable_slug 5y ago
        I used to raise beef cattle. I was told the calves get inoculated from common water supplies, whether a natural watering hole or a trough.
        hilbert42 5y ago
        It's not only cattle that get inoculated that way, yours truly was similarly inoculated in that manner. I won't go into vivid specifics except to say that when a toddler my horrified mother rushed me to hospital after I had eaten unmentionables off the street left by our four-legged brethren. I survived unscathed and asthma fee - a good test of the 'too much hygiene hypothesis' methinks. ;-)
        soperj 5y ago
        My brother managed to survive asthma free without eating poop.
      - datavirtue 5y ago
        Human babies do the same thing. I'm sure there is a long list on this one.
    - TylerE 5y ago
      Not only that, but basically 100% of the wild population is infected with chlamydia.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Don't reckon they're much different to other Australian wildlife and they're not cuddly like they appear or as many people like to make out. From time to time when I was a kid my parents and relatives used to take me to places where one could cuddle them and I can tell you they're not very cuddly at all. We tend to anthropomorphize cute animals with big eyes and I reckon that's not good for conservation overall as the ugly get less attention. Moreover, how animals appear isn't a good indicator of their nature. Another well-known example is the loris, it looks really cute but it's a very bad idea to pick one up as you'll get jabbed by its poisoned barb. Best thing to do is to just look and leave them be. Koalas aren't the only animals suffering habitat loss, many are and it's a huge problem.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > From time to time when I was a kid my parents and relatives used to take me to places where one could cuddle them and I can tell you they're not very cuddly at all +1. Would not cuddle. Australia's minister of tourism one famously proclaimed that the koala is "flea-ridden, it piddles on you, it stinks and it scratches."[4] Fun Fact: The eucalyptus that Koalas eat is a narcotic and the Koalas spend most of their lives in a drugged out stuppor[2]. Baby Koalas eat their mother's feces[1]. They sleep 18 hours a day. They have a strong musky odor. They also suffer from Chlamydia[3] and many parasites. They are nature's hippies. More seriously, all of these are evolved traits. E.g. the feces is eaten to acquire the microbes necessary to breakdown the Eucalyptus leaf. The 18 hours of sleeping is because those leaves don't have a lot of caloric content. Rather than being an evolutionary dead end in the traditional sense, their biggest problem is loss of habitat, road accidents, and encounters with dogs. I prefer the world with koalas rather than the world without, but would not cuddle or touch them them. [1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-health-news-toxicity/eucalyptus-leaves-more-delicacy-koalas https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-heal... [2] https://adventuressetravels.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/drug-addled-drop-bears-and-cuddly-koalas/ https://adventuressetravels.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/drug-ad... [3] https://www.livescience.com/62517-how-koalas-get-chlamydia.html https://www.livescience.com/62517-how-koalas-get-chlamydia.h... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/22/forget-the-piddling-koalas/b038a1d8-1401-45fa-afe2-432f17b2952a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/22/f...
- dehrmann 5y ago
  They look even cuter in person. You also don't realize they have two thumbs per hand in most pics.
- jazoom 5y ago
  Koalas are fine. I don't know anyone who has ever been attacked by one. They just keep to themselves. Magpies are much worse. I don't know anyone who hasn't been swooped by one.
  - gregoryl 5y ago
    People injure themselves panicking around Australian Magpies, far more than anything Magpies directly do. Just avoid their space for a few weeks when they are protective, and otherwise they are very sweet. If you must be in their space (i.e. you live there), invest in feeding them (not cat food!), and your main problem will be the singing gets annoying as they follow you around waiting for snacks :)
    - jazoom 5y ago
      You're oversimplify it. You don't know where they are until they are already swooping you. They've drawn blood on me before when I was walking from my car into work. They are a menace for cyclists. A woman tripped over recently when being attacked by a magpie. She was carrying her baby. The baby died. Sure, if you know exactly where they are on a regular route you might be able to avoid them by taking a different route. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/qld-baby-dies-after-magpie-swoops-mother/100362406 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/qld-baby-dies-after-m... "People injure themselves panicking around Australian Magpies, far more than anything Magpies directly do." sounds just like victim-blaming. In comparison, koalas just stay in their trees when you walk past. Of course I'm generalising because the majority of magpies don't swoop and I like hearing their songs. But there are plenty of overly aggressive magpies that do real harm.
vmception 5y ago
Being adorable isn't enough to go out of our way to protect these literally smooth brained evolutionary dead ends.
- gambiting 5y ago
  I know Koalas being stupid is a meme at this point, but I always try to post this counter pasta when I see these claims. Koalas aren't any more "stupid" than any other animal, they occupy an ecological nieche and do it well: https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/cxxn0z/koalas_are_fucking_stupid_counterpasta/ https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/cxxn0z/koalas_ar...
  - vmception 5y ago
    so many other species do too, they garner no sympathy because they aren't cute to humans. an alien species will come to this planet and wonder why all remaining species have big eyes, big foreheads and tiny limbs and realize they all have a symbiotic relationship with human's visual cortex and oxycotin production
    - madeofpalk 5y ago
      I think we try to protect plenty of other species just the same? We just don't do a good job of protecting anything.
      - nsonha 5y ago
        What is the end game of protection? Will the list of animal that needs to be protected grows forever?
      - TylerE 5y ago
        It's a known issue in conservation circles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_effect Also, similarly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_megafauna
caymanjim 5y ago
They aren't beloved by the Australians I know. They're stupid, smelly, disease-infested pests. But I agree that they look cute.
- hulitu 5y ago
  That's why they must die. I heard that also kanguroos are a pest so they shall be killed also. "This is it, this is a countdown to extinction"
  - seoulmetro 5y ago
    No. Koalas nor Kangaroos are not considered pests. That's absurd. One is conserved due to their slow reproduction patterns, the other is hunted due to their thriving reproduction patterns.

TylerE 5y ago

Kaolas are lucky they look cute. They are an evolutionary dead end and actually nasty, nasty creatures.

WC3w6pXxgGd 5y ago
Nasty how?
LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> They are an evolutionary dead end and actually nasty, nasty creatures. They're not the only ones.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
In what way are they nasty
- isaacimagine 5y ago
  Look up what the young feed on.
  - dkdbejwi383 5y ago
    Poo, for anyone who is interested
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Many animals eat poop for various reasons. For some because it's important to their digestive process (rabbits). For some, because of less important reasons (dogs).
    - soperj 5y ago
      I think all ruminants need to eat fecal matter to get the digestive enzymes needed to process the plant matter in their area.
      - aerostable_slug 5y ago
        I used to raise beef cattle. I was told the calves get inoculated from common water supplies, whether a natural watering hole or a trough.
        hilbert42 5y ago
        It's not only cattle that get inoculated that way, yours truly was similarly inoculated in that manner. I won't go into vivid specifics except to say that when a toddler my horrified mother rushed me to hospital after I had eaten unmentionables off the street left by our four-legged brethren. I survived unscathed and asthma fee - a good test of the 'too much hygiene hypothesis' methinks. ;-)
        soperj 5y ago
        My brother managed to survive asthma free without eating poop.
    - datavirtue 5y ago
      Human babies do the same thing. I'm sure there is a long list on this one.
  - TylerE 5y ago
    Not only that, but basically 100% of the wild population is infected with chlamydia.
hilbert42 5y ago
Don't reckon they're much different to other Australian wildlife and they're not cuddly like they appear or as many people like to make out. From time to time when I was a kid my parents and relatives used to take me to places where one could cuddle them and I can tell you they're not very cuddly at all. We tend to anthropomorphize cute animals with big eyes and I reckon that's not good for conservation overall as the ugly get less attention. Moreover, how animals appear isn't a good indicator of their nature. Another well-known example is the loris, it looks really cute but it's a very bad idea to pick one up as you'll get jabbed by its poisoned barb. Best thing to do is to just look and leave them be. Koalas aren't the only animals suffering habitat loss, many are and it's a huge problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > From time to time when I was a kid my parents and relatives used to take me to places where one could cuddle them and I can tell you they're not very cuddly at all +1. Would not cuddle. Australia's minister of tourism one famously proclaimed that the koala is "flea-ridden, it piddles on you, it stinks and it scratches."[4] Fun Fact: The eucalyptus that Koalas eat is a narcotic and the Koalas spend most of their lives in a drugged out stuppor[2]. Baby Koalas eat their mother's feces[1]. They sleep 18 hours a day. They have a strong musky odor. They also suffer from Chlamydia[3] and many parasites. They are nature's hippies. More seriously, all of these are evolved traits. E.g. the feces is eaten to acquire the microbes necessary to breakdown the Eucalyptus leaf. The 18 hours of sleeping is because those leaves don't have a lot of caloric content. Rather than being an evolutionary dead end in the traditional sense, their biggest problem is loss of habitat, road accidents, and encounters with dogs. I prefer the world with koalas rather than the world without, but would not cuddle or touch them them. [1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-health-news-toxicity/eucalyptus-leaves-more-delicacy-koalas https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/controversial-science-heal... [2] https://adventuressetravels.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/drug-addled-drop-bears-and-cuddly-koalas/ https://adventuressetravels.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/drug-ad... [3] https://www.livescience.com/62517-how-koalas-get-chlamydia.html https://www.livescience.com/62517-how-koalas-get-chlamydia.h... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/22/forget-the-piddling-koalas/b038a1d8-1401-45fa-afe2-432f17b2952a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/05/22/f...
dehrmann 5y ago
They look even cuter in person. You also don't realize they have two thumbs per hand in most pics.
jazoom 5y ago
Koalas are fine. I don't know anyone who has ever been attacked by one. They just keep to themselves. Magpies are much worse. I don't know anyone who hasn't been swooped by one.
- gregoryl 5y ago
  People injure themselves panicking around Australian Magpies, far more than anything Magpies directly do. Just avoid their space for a few weeks when they are protective, and otherwise they are very sweet. If you must be in their space (i.e. you live there), invest in feeding them (not cat food!), and your main problem will be the singing gets annoying as they follow you around waiting for snacks :)
  - jazoom 5y ago
    You're oversimplify it. You don't know where they are until they are already swooping you. They've drawn blood on me before when I was walking from my car into work. They are a menace for cyclists. A woman tripped over recently when being attacked by a magpie. She was carrying her baby. The baby died. Sure, if you know exactly where they are on a regular route you might be able to avoid them by taking a different route. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/qld-baby-dies-after-magpie-swoops-mother/100362406 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-09/qld-baby-dies-after-m... "People injure themselves panicking around Australian Magpies, far more than anything Magpies directly do." sounds just like victim-blaming. In comparison, koalas just stay in their trees when you walk past. Of course I'm generalising because the majority of magpies don't swoop and I like hearing their songs. But there are plenty of overly aggressive magpies that do real harm.

vmception 5y ago

Being adorable isn't enough to go out of our way to protect these literally smooth brained evolutionary dead ends.

gambiting 5y ago
I know Koalas being stupid is a meme at this point, but I always try to post this counter pasta when I see these claims. Koalas aren't any more "stupid" than any other animal, they occupy an ecological nieche and do it well: https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/cxxn0z/koalas_are_fucking_stupid_counterpasta/ https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/cxxn0z/koalas_ar...
- vmception 5y ago
  so many other species do too, they garner no sympathy because they aren't cute to humans. an alien species will come to this planet and wonder why all remaining species have big eyes, big foreheads and tiny limbs and realize they all have a symbiotic relationship with human's visual cortex and oxycotin production
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    I think we try to protect plenty of other species just the same? We just don't do a good job of protecting anything.
    - nsonha 5y ago
      What is the end game of protection? Will the list of animal that needs to be protected grows forever?
    - TylerE 5y ago
      It's a known issue in conservation circles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_effect Also, similarly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_megafauna

caymanjim 5y ago

They aren't beloved by the Australians I know. They're stupid, smelly, disease-infested pests. But I agree that they look cute.

hulitu 5y ago
That's why they must die. I heard that also kanguroos are a pest so they shall be killed also. "This is it, this is a countdown to extinction"
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  No. Koalas nor Kangaroos are not considered pests. That's absurd. One is conserved due to their slow reproduction patterns, the other is hunted due to their thriving reproduction patterns.