Controversial Koala Cuddles

My daughter Skye loves Izzy’s Koala World on Netflix, a docuseries about a young Australian girl and her family’s clinic that rehabilitates injured and orphaned koalas and releases them back into the wild.

The show’s sights and sounds take me back to traveling the east coast of Australia with my dad in the late 1990s. Skye is impressed that I held a koala and of course wants to, too. It made me curious if it’s still legal for tourists to handle the marsupial because 1. in the 1990s it was illegal in most states, 2. zoos are controversial, and 3. interacting with wild animals is even more controversial.

As of 2022, koalas are endangered in eastern Australia. Koala populations have decreased by as much as 40% in some areas in the last five years. Wildfires, drought, heat waves, and land clearing steal their habitat, and the remaining koalas are in fragmented, small populations leading to in inbreeding and disease. I recall the heartbreaking images of blackened koalas caught in the 2020 wildfires and the call for action to help these beloved creatures.  

It’s still legal to hold koalas at wildlife organizations in three states: Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia. But with an estimated 30 to 60 thousand koalas left in the wild (even this estimate is controversial), is it ethical to hold a wild animal for pleasure? Or is it “educational” enough to motivate people to take action to save these animals, thus worth the stress to the individual animal? Scientists and koala advocates say no, and I agree.

If there are people willing pay, there will be people to hand over the animals. It’s up to us as visitors to choke the demand and protect these unique creatures from extinction.