DEAR News Of The Area,

BEING a great lover of Australian fauna and also being passionate for the bush I feel leaving our national parks unmolested is very important for us all.

The recent number of well meaning letters regarding the plight of the koala would suggest that the cutting of timber in State Forest, or clearing of private property for farming, fire protection or civil construction purposes is the main cause of the declining koala population.

This appears to be the biggest concern of many well-meaning although misguided individuals and groups trying to help this species avoid extinction in the wild.

While not such a fashionable, emotive, or commercially viable issue, the much bigger threat to mainland koalas and main cause of dwindling numbers in the wild is, according to practicing and experienced koala hospital veterinarians and research scientists, actually Chlamydia.

It’s endemic in all but a few isolated groups on offshore islands.

Not usually fatal in adults, it prevents the ability of females to reproduce young.

While the biggest problem is solving this and preventing extinction in the wild, it’s not commercially viable, or a fashionable enough cause for the conspicuously outraged to put on a T-shirt or a heart wrenching television advertisement asking for donations.

Regards,
Hugh Harold SNUTS,
Woolgoolga.