Are Koalas Endangered? Status, Bushfires and Habitat Loss

What is the koala’s conservation status?

The koala has two kinds of conservation listing, and they are easy to confuse.

The IUCN rated the koala as Least Concern until the 2010s, when its reassessment moved it up to Vulnerable because of falling numbers. Under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, the northern populations were first listed as Vulnerable in 2012. A decade later, after drought, bushfires and continued land clearing, the government upgraded them to Endangered.

Koalas in Victoria and South Australia are not on the national threatened list. Some southern populations are actually very dense, and in a few places, such as parts of Victoria, koalas eat their food trees faster than the trees can recover.

How many koalas are left?

Counting koalas is surprisingly hard. They sit still high in leafy trees, are active mainly at night and live across huge areas of private and public land. Different survey methods, from people walking transects to drones with heat cameras and dogs trained to find koala droppings, give very different answers.

As a result, estimates of the total population range from under 100,000 to several hundred thousand animals. Official figures for the listed northern populations show a sharp fall: from about 185,000 in 2001 to about 92,000 in 2021, roughly a halving in two decades. Some local populations in Queensland and New South Wales have declined far more.

For comparison, millions of koalas lived in eastern Australia before European settlement. Between the 1880s and the late 1920s, millions were shot for their fur, until public anger led to full protection.

Why are koalas declining?

Several threats work together, and they are often worst in the same places.

Habitat loss and fragmentation

Clearing of eucalyptus forest for farming, housing, mining and roads is the biggest long-term threat. Koalas need large areas of the right food trees, so even partial clearing can leave too few trees to support them. Small, isolated patches of forest also cut koalas off from each other, reducing genetic diversity and making local populations easier to wipe out.

Bushfires, drought and heat

The 2019–2020 “Black Summer” bushfires burned huge areas of koala habitat in New South Wales, Victoria and on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Studies and reports estimated that tens of thousands of koalas were killed, injured or displaced. Koalas move slowly and climb up into the crowns of trees when fire approaches, where they are exposed to flames and heat.

Drought and heat waves are also deadly. During long dry spells eucalyptus leaves lose moisture, and koalas can die from dehydration and heat stress. Climate models predict hotter, drier conditions in much of the koala’s range, so these events are expected to become more frequent. Because koalas depend on a narrow menu, they cannot easily switch food; see what do koalas eat?

Dogs and cars

As towns grow into koala habitat, koalas cross roads and yards to move between trees. Collisions with vehicles and attacks by domestic dogs kill thousands of koalas each year and are a leading cause of death near cities such as Brisbane.

Disease

Chlamydia, a bacterial infection, is widespread in many mainland koala populations. It can cause eye infections that lead to blindness, painful bladder infections and infertility in females, which lowers breeding rates. Koala retrovirus (KoRV) is also common, especially in the north, and is linked to a weaker immune system and cancers. Some island populations, such as the one on Kangaroo Island, are free of chlamydia.

What is being done to save koalas?

Australia adopted a National Recovery Plan for the Koala in 2022 for the listed northern populations. Conservation work includes:

• Protecting and replanting habitat, including corridors that link isolated patches of forest.
• Safer roads, with fencing, underpasses and bridges that guide koalas across highways.
• Wildlife hospitals and rescue groups that care for koalas hurt by fire, cars, dogs and disease.
• Chlamydia vaccine research, with field trials in Queensland and New South Wales.
• Better monitoring, using drones, detection dogs and national surveys to track numbers.

Koalas are protected by law in every Australian state and territory. However, conservation groups point out that most remaining koala habitat lies on private land, where protection is weaker.

Koalas compared with other threatened animals

On the IUCN scale, Vulnerable means a species faces a high risk of extinction in the wild over the medium term. It sits below Endangered and Critically Endangered. The giant panda shares the same Vulnerable category today, after being downlisted from Endangered in 2016. For an explanation of all the categories, see endangered animals.