So Australia wants to create the disease-resistant "super koala" ...

So Australia wants to create the disease-resistant

The 28 koalas participating in the program are chlamydia free and have a low rate of KORV, an AIDS-like disease.

Man-made artificial manipulation will exploit 28 "special" koalas, transferred from Kangaroo Island to Cleland Wildlife Park. They are free from chlamydia and have a low rate of KORV, an AIDS-like disease.





The terrible spate of black summer fires in Australia has diminished the koalas' chances of survival even further. Faced with this scenario, some Australian experts are trying to create a "super koala" that does not contract some of the diseases that are killing its species and that has greater genetic diversity.

With the intention of saving Kangaroo Island koalas and potentially the rest of the species, specialists will import in the coming weeks a group of males from the mainland - from areas such as the Strzelecki mountain ranges - to meet with surviving female bushfires. . The goal is for them to mate with each other during the southern spring, giving birth to a dozen or so offspring a year. (READ also: Koala without paw climbs again thanks to a prosthesis made by a dentist).

"The super koalas will be the ones who have the greatest opportunities to address climate change, as well as other diseases and emerging challenges faced by koalas," said Chris Daniels, chief executive officer of Koala Life, an Australian organization whose purpose is the conservation of koalas.

The 28 "golden children"

None of the 28 animals rescued from Kangaroo Island have chlamydia, the disease that is killing their relatives on the east coast of Australia, and only a few have contracted KoRV, an HIV-like virus that makes koalas vulnerable to infection and to tumors. Precisely for this potential they have to save the species they have been nicknamed the "golden children".

“They will be incredibly valuable animals, they will have greater genetic variety and they will be less prone to genetic diseases and conditions,” Daniels said.

And here we are ... Forced to manipulate nature in order to save animals (and without solving the REAL problems that are exterminating them). Several organizations are striving to restore ecosystems and reintroduce native wildlife, but the approximately 250.000 hectares of charred land have made the situation even more critical.



Koalas are currently struggling to survive trying to reach the little food available, while a great deal of uncertainty still remains about their future, since perhaps there will not be enough food to feed the next generations. But super koalas are not the real solution ...

Source: EFE / Koala Life

READ also:

  • Koalas will go extinct before 2050, the alarm of Australian scientists
  • What is this koala doing behind the wheel of a car?
  • In Australia they are about to destroy 52 hectares of koala habitat to enlarge a quarry
  • The sweetest images of nine baby koalas born after the fires in Australia
  • Not just kangaroos and koalas: the silent slaughter of platypus due to fires in Australia
  • After the Australian fires, the recovered Koalas go “home” to their eucalyptus trees
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