Extract from ABC News
In short:
A new koala joey has been welcomed to the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra through its captive breeding program.
Programs like the one in Canberra are working to spread awareness of the species' endangered status and create an "insurance population".
What's next?
The new joey's two sisters, Kirra and Namadgi, may soon be called to join the next generation of the program.
The National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra has welcomed a new endangered koala joey as part of its breeding program.
With about 80,000 koalas left in the wild, programs like this one have been working to both spread awareness of their endangered status and build up an "insurance policy" of the iconic Australian marsupials.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists koalas as a vulnerable species – and in the ACT, NSW and QLD their classification is even more serious, being declared endangered in those jurisdictions in 2022.
National Zoo Animal Care Manager Sophie Dentrinos said breeding programs are also effective as an educational tool to let people know what is happening to koalas in the wild.
"We know that koala numbers are declining rapidly – we have gone in the space of a decade from not at all registered on the IUCN red list to now endangered," Ms Dentrinos said.
"The catastrophic bushfire summers that we've had recently had a devastating effect on them — habitat clearance, car strikes and disease are all having a huge impact on numbers out there in the wild.
"With about 80,000 left in the wild, we're using our koalas in zoos and wildlife parks to educate people and make them aware of what's happening in our own backyards, and make them want to help the koalas."
The Canberra zoo's new joey, which is yet to be named because its sex is unknown, is the third successfully born to breeding pair Matilda and Bailey.
National Zoo and Aquarium general manager Renee Nasserpour said one of the most important of the zoo's roles was to educate about conservation efforts and the threats to species in the wild.
"We've got so many endangered and vulnerable species here that we look after and care for, and we really want to make sure that their cousins and family members out in the wild are also looked after, and people understand what threats they're facing," Ms Nasserpour said.
"So it really is an opportunity for us to communicate [and] educate [about] those issues that are happening to wildlife, and hope that we can send those messages and enable people to leave with a greater understanding of conservation.
"That is the core of our facility, and what we really want to communicate to our visitor."
Ms Nasserpour said the zoo communicated that through tours and encounters and video QR links set up around the zoo.
Three years since zoo's last koala joey
Ms Dentrinos said the new joey is just beginning to make its way out of mum Matilda's pouch.
"The new joey is now eight months old, which sounds quite developed but is still very much inside mum's pouch a lot of the time," she said.
She said it wasn't uncommon for a breeding pair like Matilda and Bailey to produce multiple joeys across breeding seasons, but that didn't make it a simple process for them or zookeepers.
"Koalas do breed fairly readily, but it takes a lot of time and investment to get them to maturity," she said.
"It's been three years since we've had a koala joey here."
Ms Dentrinos said the new joey's presence in its mum's pouch was first confirmed on Mother's Day this year, but during pregnancy and development the zookeepers remained hands-off.
"We don't want to stress her out or cause her any reason to reject that joey," Ms Dentrinos said.
"The joey is starting to move outside of that pouch now, still sticking really close to mum, but visible enough to be physically off her and experimenting with leaves.
"That will progress to the joey clinging on the back of mum and moving around that way, and then by about one year that joey will be ready to move away from mum and find its own territory."
Ms Dentrinos said the new joey's two older sisters, Kirra and Namadgi, were currently "ambassadors" for koalas in the wild, but their turn to join the breeding program could come at any time.
"As part of the breeding program we look at the genetics of all the individuals and decide who should move where and for what breeding, and how often they should breed," she said.
"At the moment Kirra and Namadgi are basically here maturing and becoming full-grown adult girls, which they are now, so there is a chance that they would be requested to breed elsewhere.
"[But for now] we use them as ambassadors, they're educating people on koalas and their endangered status out in the wild."
No comments:
Post a Comment