Koalas Threatened By Global Warming?

The latest global warming scare this time concerns koalas:

THE koala is under threat from climate change, according to new research which shows rising carbon dioxide levels are killing nutrients in the plants they eat.

Lab tests have revealed that global warming is stripping the goodness from eucalypt leaves, and the University of Sydney researchers behind the study say the koalas that rely on them don’t have enough time to adapt to the change.

“What currently may be good koala habitat may well become, over a period of not so many years at the rate that carbon dioxide concentrations are rising, very marginal habitat,” lead researcher Professor Ian Hume said.

“I’m sure we’ll see koalas disappearing from their current range even though we don’t see any change in tree species or structure of the forests.” [AAP]

Koalas are dissappearing right now from their habitats and it is not because of global warming. I love how people use the global warming scare to disguise what the real environmental issues are. According to the Australian Koala Foundation there are now less then 100,000 koalas left in the wild in Australia. That is less then the number of minke whales in the oceans that Australians get worked up over every year during the Japanese whale hunt.

The reason for the decline of koalas is mainly because of land clearing, which forces koalas to move long distances in search of new habitat that exposes them to feral animals and motor vehicles. Even if the newest global warming claim is true, the koala first needs to have habitat left before global warming can even threaten it.