Demand an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the koala crisis

Victoria’s Shameful Secret: Demand an Urgent Inquiry into the Koala Tragedy

Shocking reports have emerged from Victoria, Australia: about 1,000 bushfire-impacted koalas were euthanized by aerial shooting in the Budj Bim National Park—an area listed as World Heritage. This tragedy is just the latest chapter in a long-running crisis.

For decades, habitat destruction and the spread of blue gum plantations have pushed koalas into unsafe and unsustainable environments. When these plantations are harvested, koalas are injured, killed, or left homeless. Starving and emaciated, many don’t survive.

This animal welfare emergency has been ignored for too long.

Join people around the world in demanding transparency and accountability. Call for an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the koala crisis in southwest Victoria.

Our team in Australia will make sure every member of Victoria’s parliament will see our petition.

Sign now—before more lives are lost.

Animal Rescuers - No Targ

Animal Rescuers

IFAW

I am writing to express my concern about the welfare of koalas in southwest Victoria.

Recent headlines around the last resort welfare intervention of aerial shooting of bushfire-impacted koalas in the World Heritage-listed Budj Bim National Park have understandably caused local, national and international outrage.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what is an underlying chronic welfare crisis facing koalas in southwest Victoria. One that has been unfolding since the 1990s. The root cause is habitat loss and the blue gum plantation industry. Koala habitat has been decimated, with blue gum plantations providing the only temporary but dangerous refuge. When harvesting begins, koalas risk being injured or killed as the trees they rely on are cut down. Those that do survive have nowhere to go.

The landscape in the region has now reached crisis point and can no longer support koalas that rely on it for food and shelter. Starving koalas are literally falling out of trees and are being brought into care severely emaciated. Many are past the point of saving. For those that survive, there is nowhere safe to release them back into.

This has gone on for too long and behind closed doors. The time has come for a comprehensive and transparent investigation.

I call on all Victorian Members of Parliament to establish an urgent parliamentary inquiry into this ecological and welfare crisis facing koalas in southwest Victoria.

The inquiry should focus on:

-The severe lack of remaining connected native koala habitat in southwest Victoria.

-The blue gum plantation industry’s impact on koalas and their habitat.

-The failure of regulatory mechanisms to manage and protect Victoria’s koala populations.

-The ongoing burden placed on volunteer wildlife rehabilitators who are rescuing and rehabilitating koalas with no funding, no local source of leaf to feed them and no safe habitat to release them back into.

-The recent mass koala deaths and injuries following the Budj Bim fire and harvesting of adjacent blue gum plantations.

-The decision-making processes that led to the aerial euthanasia of hundreds of koalas in Budj Bim.

-Future government funding and plans to ensure timely and expert response to wildlife emergencies.

The public inquiry needs to be fully transparent, allowing evidence and participation from all sectors of the community - traditional owners, private landowners, industry, wildlife rehabilitators, conservation and animal welfare NGOs, researchers, government and importantly the wider Victorian public.

With koalas on the endangered list along Australia’s east coast – Victoria’s koalas could hold the key to the future survival of the species. We have no other option to ensure they survive into the future – to do nothing is unfathomable.

Sincerely,

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Victoria’s Shameful Secret: Demand an Urgent Inquiry into the Koala Tragedy

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