Australia wants to create a “super koala” | From …

Australian experts are trying to create a “super koala”, who does not contract certain diseases that kill them and has greater genetic diversity, by breeding mainland stallions with females who survived the wildfires on Kangaroo Island.

“The super koalas will be those who have greater opportunities to fight climate change, as well as other emerging diseases and the challenges koalas face, ”Chris Daniels, executive director of Koala Life, told reporters at the Foreign Press Association, to which Efe belongs.

At the center of this program are the 28 young koalas who were rescued from the 2019-2020 ‘Black Summer’ wildfires, which burned 50 percent of Kangaroo Island, 112 kilometers southwest. from the city of Adelaide, and which were transferred to Cleland Wildlife Park, south of this metropolis.

These devastating fires killed nearly 90% of the 50,000 Kangaroo Koalas and destroyed all habitats. one of those marsupials whose name in the Aboriginal language means “without drinking”, alluding to the fact that 90 percent of their hydration comes from the eucalyptus leaves they eat.

The Golden Children

“The most special feature of the koalas on Kangaroo Island is that none of them have chlamydia, the disease that kills loved ones on Australia’s east coast, when a handful only contracted the retrovirus (KoRV). For this reason, these 28 rescued animals are called the “golden children”, because of the possibilities they have to save the species due to this peculiarity.

The flip side is the low genetic variety of kangaroo koalas due in part to insularity, but mainly to the fact that all are descendants of 18 specimens that were brought to the island in 1920, when the uncontrolled trade in their skins drove these marsupials to extinction in South Australia.

In an effort to save kangaroo koalas, and potentially the rest of this species, experts from South Australia want to import a group of males from areas such as the Strzelecki mountain ranges in neighboring Victoria, into the coming weeks.

The objective is that they mate in September, in the austral spring, with the twenty females rescued from Kangaroo Island, and produce about ten young per year.

“They will be animals of incredible value”Daniels commented at Cleland Park noting that these super koalas “will have greater genetic variety and will be less prone to genetic diseases and conditions” that affect, for example, the liver or testes.

Reclaim Kangaroo Island

With some 250,000 hectares of burnt land on Kangaroo Island, The koalas’ chances of survival are uncertain, despite the efforts of experts such as the Adelaide Botanical Garden Seed Bank, who are trying to reintroduce some species of native flora.

The koala, a very delicate animal and particularly sensitive to any change of environment, spends about 20 hours a day dozing or resting, and uses the remaining four hours to feed on the leaves of a few dozen eucalyptus species.

Shortly after the devastating fires, it is “hard to know what they are like” the koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), who previously had to undergo sterilization to stop their population explosion and are now struggling to obtain the little food available and on. does not know if they will have “enough food to feed the next generation”.