Koalas are in the top ten animals threatened by extinction due to global warming according to the UN. But, in thirty years the lovable koala could be gone and the driving force is chlamydia.
A conservation group has warned that overdevelopment, disease, climate change, and sexual disease are killing off the species.
Although this condition has been known for years, it was the fate of the koala rescued from last summer’s dreadful fire that thrust the real cause of the koala decline into the limelight.
Her paws healed but soon she developed ovarian cysts associated with chlamydia, an ailment that affects 50 percent of Australia’s koala population, the shelter said.
In addition to that Koalas also suffer from Koala Immune Deficiency Syndrome…or KIDS.
Another spectre cited in recent publicity concerning the koala is a newly identified but little understood retrovirus, originally given the acronym KoRV, but now more catchily abbreviated as Kids (Koala Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Beeton believes that a great deal more needs to be known about the condition: “It’s very hard for a single disease to kill a species. We couldn’t kill rabbits in Australia with myxomatosis.”
Puts the phrase “tie me kangaroo down, boys” in a whole new light.
UPDATE: Of course, the above doesn’t stop watermelons from going to Copenhagen to claim climate change is the sole reason that Koalas face extinction.