They sleep nearly all day and night, avoid socializing, and are not actually bears. There's nothing else like them, yet koalas face extinction.
When not sleeping, koalas feast on eucalyptus leaves that are toxic to most animalsImage: Roland Weihrauch/dpa/picture alliance
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Koala "bears" are a marsupial that rear their young in a pouch — and therefore, are not actually bears — that evolved over 25 million years ago.
A very distant relative of the wombat, no other animal on earth comes close to them and they're even classified into their own family, called Phascolarctidae. These loners are also very territorial.
One of the most iconic animals on the planet, the universal symbol for all that is cute and fluffy — and lazy — has extremely powerful claws with three fingers and two thumbs for extra grip. These paws allow koalas to easily scale and make a home in towering eucalyptus trees that dominate Australian forests.
The animal is raised in its mother's pouch and sleeps up to 22 hours a day. Koalas get so tired because they spend their waking life feasting on toxic eucalyptus leaves that would kill most mammals. They eat up to one kilogram (2.2 pounds) a day due to the low nutritional value of the leaves, and also to satisfy their thirst.
Koalas are also extremely fussy. The will eat just 50 varieties of the more than 800 eucalyptus species in Australia.
These trees can only be found in Australia's relatively forested east and southeast coast. The problem is, when forests burn or are cut down, Australia's furriest mascot has nowhere to go.
More frequent and intense bushfires are destroying koala habitats Image: Daniel Berehulak
Wildfires and chlamydia threaten koalas
Back in 1788 when the British invaded Australia, as many as 10 million koalas were said to inhabit the country. That number has now dropped to 50,000 by some estimates.
Since European colonization, millions of koalas died at the hands of hunters who prized their furs. More recently, koala populations are threatened as habits are cleared for development.
If that's not bad enough, chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, is rampant through the population. It can not only cause blindness, but infertility.
But global heating is the animal's greatest threat. Drought and extreme heat are reducing the water and nutrition content of the koala's pure leaf diet. And wildfires worsened by climate change have already destroyed fast swathes of their habitat.
Scenes of blackened, burning koalas fleeing the Black Summer fires that engulfed eastern Australia in 2019-2020 helped inspire politicians to raise the conservation status of koalas from vulnerable to be endangered.
Bushfire survivors are released back into the wild following the Black Summer firesImage: Loren Elliott/Reuters
Yet koala numbers declined 30% between 2018 and 2021. In the state of New South Wales, Australia's most popular animal will likely be extinct by 2050 without urgent intervention. As populations become more isolated, a reported lack of genetic diversity also limits their ability to adapt.
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Could koalas be saved?
While the koala population is struggling in the hotter north, the marsupial is said to flourish in cooler climates and some populations are stable in the southern state of Victoria — and more genetically diverse.
The koalas are also a few kilos bigger on average and are also fluffier with more fur.
Though they weigh up to 14 kilograms in the south, the critters are half the size of the "giant" koalas that roamed Australia until becoming extinct around 50,000 years ago.
The koala population in Victoria is around 24,000, according to one estimate and has the potential to grow. But, as ever, continued deforestation means its habitat limit has been reached — for now.
Bushfires ravage Australia
Australia is grappling with its worst bushfire season to date. The nation has been forced to reckon with a rising death toll, mass evacuations and suffering animal populations.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Davey
Widespread devastation
Massive bushfires have devastated Australia as the blazes continue to rage across the country. Since the start of one of the worst fire seasons on record, more than 2,500 homes have been burned, tens of thousands of people evacuated, and at least 29 killed. Here, a photographer reacts to seeing the burnt-out remains of a relative's home in Quaama, New South Wales.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Davey
Area the size of South Korea razed
As of January 17, fires have burnt roughly 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of land, an area larger than South Korea or Portugal. More than 170 fires continue to burn in Victoria state and New South Wales. There were 82 fires burning across New South Wales, 30 uncontained, and several fires in Victoria, according to fire authorities.
Image: Imago/B. Xuefei
Battling the blazes
Firefighters protect homes around Charmhaven, New South Wales, on December 30. Wildfires burning across four Australian states that day destroyed hundreds of properties and caused multiple fatalities. A volunteer firefighter was killed and three others were injured after strong winds pushed a fire truck over.
Image: picture-allianceAP/Twitter@NSWRFS
Red skies
A person stands in protective gear as nearby bushfires turn the sky red in Mallacoota, Victoria. Thousands of people in the coastal region were told to evacuate over the New Year period, while the Country Fire Authority later issued an ominous warning to residents still in the area that it was "too late to leave." Some 4,000 people spent New Year's Eve on the beach to avoid the flames.
An air tanker drops fire retardant over the Gospers Mountain fire near Colo Heights, northwest of Sydney, Australia on November 15, 2019. The Gospers Mountain fire originated in the Wollemi National Park, and came close to merging with other major fires in the area. Fires have torn apart the Blue Mountains, a popular tourist area, burning more than 500,000 hectares of land.
Image: Reuters/AAP/D. Lewins
Quick escape
A burnt bicycle lies on the ground in front of a house destroyed by bushfires on the outskirts of the town of Bargo, near Sydney, on December 21, 2019. The town was hit with a catastrophic fire danger warning as fires turned several nearby homes to ashes. The New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a state of emergency that same week.
Image: Getty Images/D. Gay
Toddler receives posthumous medal for firefighter father
Firefighters are among the 28 people who have lost their lives in the fires. Some were volunteers. Thirty-two-year-old Geoffrey Keaton, along with a colleague, died when a burnt tree fell in the path of their fire truck. Keaton's nineteen-month-old son Harvey was awarded one of the service's highest honors on behalf of his father on January 2.
Image: Reuters/NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
Animals caught in the flames
A kangaroo that survived the bushfire in Wollemi National Park in Sydney grazes for food in November 2019. The fires have not only sparked concern over human well-being, but have also created worries over the survival of endangered and vulnerable animals. The fires have killed more than a billion animals across eastern and southern Australia.
Image: Imago Images/AAP/J. Piper
Economic toll
The Insurance Council of Australia said on January 7 that the bushfires have caused at least US$485 million (€435 million) in damage and that number was likely to rise. Separately, authorities warned of looters in towns where people have evacuated and scammers taking advantage of fundraisers for relief efforts.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Khan
Koala species threatened by fires
The bushfires have devastated Australia's koala population. In New South Wales state alone, officials estimate 30% of koala habitat - eucalpyt woodlands, which they use for both food and shelter - may have been lost. At least 45 koalas were being treated for burns at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital.
Image: Reuters/AAP Image/D. Mariuz
Australians take to the streets
Thousands of people took to the streets on January 10 in Australia's major cities to rally against Prime Minister Scott Morrison's inaction on climate change and his handling of the ongoing bushfire crises. The nationwide rallies were organized by university students in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart.
Image: picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS
Smoke across oceans
Smoke from Australia drifted across the Pacific and reached South America, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on January 7. On January 2, the EU Copernicus program recorded the highest concentrations of atmospheric carbon monoxide in the world over the "clean" South Pacific Ocean stemming from the fires in Australia.
Image: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
