One of the frustrating things for me when I first started at AKF was that it was hard to work out what was really causing the problem. Was it disease? Or something else?
And of course, all roads lead to Rome – it was habitat loss and the ghastly fur trade from 1890 until around 1930, where we have the manifests of 8 million Koala skins that went to market.
Our political leaders of the day blamed the Aboriginal people for the loss of Koalas, not looking squarely into the reality of this massive slaughter and many political careers were lost as a result, particularly in 1927 when the Forgan Smith government in Queensland were blamed and voted out of power for the massive slaughter. If you are up for it, there is a document called Black August on our website and also the Koala Manifesto where we describe this slaughter, which in my view the Koala has never really recovered.
Now, chlamydia and vaccines – with the ridiculous notion that you can vaccinate Koalas in the wild. It is important to remember that most Koalas get this vaccine once they are already injured.
Now with bird flu arriving in our country, I can hardly watch the news.
One of my joyous things to do in the bush is visit Phillip Island in Victoria where you can see the Fairy Penguins come in and I recently saw them in Northwest Tasmania last year. What a joy and now Bird Flu has been confirmed in one of those colonies.
It horrifies me and it prompted me to understand where this came from.
And “it first emerged from a poultry outbreak in Asia in 1996” is the single line that stood out when I searched.
How we treat animals in captivity by and large is the root cause of this incredible disease and I suppose I could say “closing the door after the horse has bolted” is relevant here.
I know too that many of the wetlands that are necessary for migratory birds are under enormous threat like the Koala habitat and I see no political statements from you know who, my 16th Environment Minister about how those landscapes can be better protected. It always, always is about band aids; and as always it makes me more determined.
