Koala's love them don't we, there is nothing better than spotting one in the wild and up here in Port Macquarie we are lucky to see them quite regularly as we have a large population of them.
Unfortunately though Koalas and humans don't go all that well together. Development along the Australian East Coast has seen humans occupy areas that were once prime habitats for Koalas. Port Macquarie is an excellent example of a place where we have pushed the Koala population into designated "Koala Corridors". In Port our Koalas are subjected to dog attacks and being run over by cars if they wander into our part of the environment, this along with increased disease has seen ours and other Koala populations decrease significantly in recent years.
On May the second 2012 Koalas in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT were listed as a vunerable species. The new status will afford Koala populations some extra protection from development however there are many environmental experts that believe that only an "Endanged" status will give Koalas the protection they need to survive long term.
So what can we do to help? well just being aware of the problem is a start but if you want to do more think about supporting a Koala preservation organisation, if you have some land near Koalas consider planting some "food' trees. If your driving around a place like Port Macqaurie at night go slowly and watch out for them, and if your walking around during the day look up you might just see one, an iconic Australian marsupial that exists nowhere else on earth.