Almost 700 koalas secretly killed in Australia, overpopulation cited

CAPE OTWAY, Australia, March 5 (UPI) -- About 686 koalas in a colony of about 8,000 were secretly killed by authorities in Australia's Victoria state in an effort to curb overpopulation.

There were up to 11 koalas per hectare in the woodlands at Cape Otway, about 140 miles southwest of Melbourne; the sustainable density in the state of Victoria is of one or fewer koalas per hectare.

Euthanasia was conducted on the koalas between September 2013 and March 2014. Koalas were removed from trees, sedated, evaluated by veterinarians and then killed by lethal injection.

Koalas were starving due to their high numbers, according to Environment Minister Lisa Neville. Scientists defended the cull, but the Australian government said no more secret culls would be permitted.

"It got to the point where there were no leaves left on the trees and the koalas were literally falling out of trees," Desley Whisson, a koala expert at Deakin University, told Radio 3AW. "They were dying of starvation. It's actually not a very nice thing to move a koala; a lot of them will actually die [from stress] during that process."

Frank Fotinas, manager of a caravan park at Cape Otway that promotes camping under koalas and trees, said koalas are good for business, but too many trees were stripped of leaves, creating hundreds of acres of dead wood.

"Koalas are great for business but if there's no trees, there's no koalas," Fotinas said. "The whole of the cape smelled of dead koalas. It smelled like death."

Australia's total koala population decreased to an average 75,000, down from millions, because of introduction of diseases, hunting for koala pelts and development on natural habitats, according to conservation groups.