Save a tree... shoot a koala (1 Viewer)

[MikeSerrano]

Call to shoot 20,000 Australian koalas


No animals were harmed in the making of this post.

-Mike

 

[Christ Reynolds]

sucks for the koalas, but i guess it sounds like it must be done.

CJ

 

[Nick Sievers]

Looks like i'll be eating well for the next few months.

 

[Ted Lee]

did you know those cuddly animals are stoned all the time? something about a narcotic side-effect of the leafs they eat. explains why they're so kick-back.

i hate to hear stuff like this, but i suppose the alternative is worse.

 

[ColinM]

Funny - Aren't we doing the same thing to the rest of the world...?

 

[Philip_G]

Hook me up with some free airfare, I'll whack some koalas and donate sperm in the same trip.

 

[Philip_G]

you know, the aussies went with us to iraq, so I too shall join them in their struggle against the evil doer koalas.

 

[Chris]

Animal overpopulation hits every so often when other predators are out of the loop.. take blackbirds in the midwest, or sometimes deer.

But yes, what's going on with Koalas in the longterm has to be done to preserve them as well.. if they destroy their food source, ala locusts, they won't survive.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

Mmmmmmmm. Kowaaalaaaas.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Without knowing, I assume that the island in question is Kangaroo Island, a popular tourist destination for South Australians (you can take a ferry if you wish).

The reason for the overpopulation is that koalas are not native to that island (it is pretty big—I’m guessing about the size of Puerto Rico), but were relocated there from the mainland when koalas were thought to be endangered.

As expected the koalas thrived—too much so, as it turns out.

 

[Zen Butler]

Philip, , I almost forgot about that one.

Wonder if you could get free airfare to the MOA if you were to donate?

 

[andrew markworthy]

I promise to shoot any koalas I see roaming around (Old) South Wales.

 

[Holadem]

That was excellent Phil!

--
H

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Hey we could always donate some Koalas to George Lucas, I hear he wants to replace all those Ewoks when he does the next version of ROTJ.....

 

[MarkHastings]

Ummm, yeah, poor tourists :rolleyes

 

[Matty Bradshaw]

Its a catch 22 for them, if they kill the koalas the tourists stay away, and if they don't kill the koalas they will eventually die anyway, due to lack of food



I have never been there myself and i have lived here for 30 years

 

[Lew Crippen]

When I lived in Glenelg, you could take a ferry directly there for a short time. This ferry was not able to compete with the one that left from Cape Jervis (and I think still does).

An hour and a half drive (or so) from Adelaide and maybe an hour on the ferry—you can drive right off and relax. Personally, I would not spend the time looking for koalas, but head for the south shore of the island and the sea lions. They are a lot easier to spot than those little guys hiding in the tress, looking pretty much like a part of the tree.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

I agree with Colin, we humans have been doing this for centuries. Why aren't we being culled?

While they need to find a solution to the problem, I don't think this is a very good one, just an easy one, which will probably backfire big time.

 

[MarkHastings]

I was just watching a documentary on a particular bird in either Australia or New Zealand (I forget exactly), but they said that there was a bird that was so numerous that they were killing it freely. It finally got the point where they made it extinct.

Hopefully these professionals are the only ones doing the shooting and not some rednack with a truck, going around shooting wildly like Uncle Jimbo - "THIN OUT THEIR NUMBERS!!!!!"

 

[Lew Crippen]

Don’t forget guys, that it was the introduction of koalas to Kangaroo Island that created the imbalance. In this case if ‘man’ were to eradicate all koalas from the island, the balance would be restored.

Note that I am not necessarily advocating the eradication of koalas from the island—only making the observation that the initial intervention was the introduction of a non-native species. We just usually think of these mistakes as being things like cane toads (and I can assure you that most Aussies would be foursquare behind their eradication from Queensland.