Koalas go on the pill to control numbers

Wildlife authorities in Australia plan to implant contraceptive hormones into 2,000 koala bears in an effort to keep the numbers down.

The programme will take place over the next 10 weeks at a national park in the south-eastern state of Victoria, the state’s environment minister, John Thwaites said.

Trials of the slow-release hormone have found it prevents conception for up to six years, Thwaites said.

Conserving koalas “means controlling population numbers where the animals are eating out their own food source and protecting natural habitat where numbers are low”, he said.

Koala populations are not spread evenly across the state, and in some areas their population density is so high that they’re destroying vegetation, he said.

The notoriously fussy eaters survive on a diet of leaves from a small number of eucalyptus tree species.

Conservationists warn that the animals are in danger of dying out along Australia’s east coast, as urban sprawl destroys their habitat.

But their population has exploded on Kangaroo Island off Australia’s south coast, and some environmentalists have urged officials to shoot hundreds of the animals there because they’re chewing their way through the island’s foliage.

Authorities in South Australia state have rejected calls for a koala cull, fearing it would generate a backlash among international tourists and others.

Legislative council member Sandra Kanck, said earlier this year she’d received dozens of angry and abusive e-mails, many from the United States, after she suggested the cull.

She said some of the messages called her a “murderer” and “assassin”.