Koalas are not bears. They are not placental or ‘eutherian’ mammals, but MARSUPIALS, which means that their young are born immature & they develop further in the safety of a pouch. It’s incorrect to call them ‘Koala bears’ – their correct name is simply ‘Koalas’. Habitat loss is the greatest threat to Koalas. The main reasons for this are land clearing, bushfires and diseases of the eucalypts, like ‘dieback’ which cause the trees to die. The word koala is said to come from the Dharug peoples (whose traditional lands span the area from Parramatta to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales) word meaning ‘no water’. In South East Queensland, koalas are called dumbirrbi in the Jagera language, marrambi in the Yugarabul language, borobi in the Ugambeh language, and dumbribbi in the Turrbul language. Koalas are a type of mammal called marsupials, which give birth to underdeveloped young. They are so different from any other marsupial, however, that they have been classified into their own family, called Phascolarctidae. They share a number of characteristics with wombats, who are their closest living relatives, including a backward-facing pouch.

Koalas live over a range of open forest and woodland communities but ultimately their habitat is defined by the presence of a select group of food trees. Koalas are found in higher densities where food trees are growing on more fertile soils and along watercourses. They do, however, remain in areas where their habitat has been partially cleared and in urban areas.

The distribution of koalas covers much of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and a small area in South Australia. Over the past 200 years, their distribution does not appear to have reduced, however, individual koala populations have declined. Local extinctions have occurred due to clearing and fragmentation of eucalypt woodlands and forests for agriculture and human settlement. Fossil records indicate that many years ago, the koala inhabited parts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. There are no fossil records of koalas ever living in Tasmania.

In Queensland, the greatest concentration of koalas is in South East Queensland where they now compete for space with a rapidly growing human population.

Under Queensland’s Nature Conservation Act 1992, koalas are listed as vulnerable state-wide and are a protected species. In 2012, the Commonwealth Government listed the koala as ‘vulnerable’ in Queensland under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth).

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