Koalas in Victoria are facing a growing crisis. Speak up for them!

Mosswood Wildlife

Victoria’s Shameful Secret: Demand urgent action for struggling koalas

Victoria's koalas are facing a hidden but escalating welfare and conservation 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 at risk of being injured, killed, or left homeless.

The landscape has now reached a tipping point. It simply can no longer support the koalas that depend on it.

Starving, emaciated koalas are falling from trees, being brought into care—many too far gone to be saved. And for those that survive, there is no safe habitat left to return to.

This travesty has been hidden behind closed doors for far too long.

While Victorian koalas may not be listed as endangered, numbers don’t tell the whole story. What we’re witnessing is a large-scale animal welfare and environmental emergency.

Despite the scale of the problem, there has never been a comprehensive investigation into the drivers of this crisis or the solutions needed to secure a future for Victoria's koalas.

Join people around the world in demanding accountability for these innocent lives.

We are calling for a parliamentary inquiry to focus on habitat loss and fragmentation, the impacts of plantation forestry, long-term habitat protection, wildlife corridor creation, and evidence-based solutions to ensure healthy, sustainable koala populations for future generations.

Sign the petition now—demand action before more animal lives are lost.

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 south-west Victoria—all of which are facing a serious welfare crisis that has been unfolding since the 1990s.

As native habitat disappears, many koalas turn to blue gum plantations for food and shelter. But these plantations are only a temporary refuge. When harvesting begins, koalas risk being  injured, orphaned, or killed as the trees they depend on are cut down.

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 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 urgent action for struggling koalas

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