Target: Jacinta Allen, Premier of Victoria, Australia
Goal: Stop the koala culls and expand efforts to preserve habitats.
An Australian park was the site of a very controversial cull. Helicopters descended on Budj Bim National Park, and snipers inside the choppers shot over 700 koala bears. The shocking action took place after a large brushfire devastated much of the koalas’ habitat. Although officials argued they were doing what’s best for sickened and vulnerable animals, an intense backlash – and equally intense criticism – has arisen.
Immediate criticisms focused on the culls themselves, which initially took place with no public disclosure. Advocates for the koalas argued that aerial evaluations were a poor way to determine which koalas were in poor health. In addition, killing mother koalas would put young joeys at imminent risk of death. And some critics contend that efforts to provide the koalas with short-term food boosts were ignored.
Longer-term, conservationists foresee even more serious problems. Habitats and food sources for the forest-dwelling koalas continue to shrink due to logging and brushfires fueled by poor forest management and climate effects. Koalas have already reached endangered status across large swaths of Australia, and the government’s lack of transparency on issues that directly affect their populations is compounding the crisis.
Sign the petition below to demand leaders take proactive steps to save these beloved animals in both the short-term and the long-term.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Premier Allen,
The necessity and means of the recent koala cull in Victoria are a matter for debate. Was aerial evaluation suitable and reliable? Were healthy koalas caught in the crosshairs? Could more attention have been given to increasing food supplies? We may never know the answers, though these questions should be posed and analyzed in future situations.
What we can likely say with more confidence is that koala habitation is an ongoing problem. Concentrations are too high in certain areas, and not enough in others. As a consequence, genetic diversity suffers and the dangers from disasters like the national park bushfire increase. Accept the offers of Wildlife Victoria to send trained experts and medical personnel to the currently affected area.
Longer-term, devote more resources to protecting koalas’ invaluable habitats and to mitigating the damaging effects of logging, of forest mismanagement, and of the climate crisis. Habitat conservation is species conservation.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: pexels
For God sake, don’t turn into the USA. Careless and mercenary. Take care of your beautiful environment and be proud of your beautiful country. Also, you will regret it like the way you’ve regretted your treatment for the aboriginal people.😡😡
Julie do you live in the USA? If you do, get the f out. People like you are persona non grata.
Why, for telling the truth?
Julie,
Have some American pride would you? Animal Experimentation funded by the American Government has been cut and had been going on for many administrations up until the current one which Whitecoatwaste.org has all but eradicated with the help of Senators such as Rand Paul and Ben Cohen from Ben & Jerry’s, and many others. Your facts are seriously askew! We also don’t get our kicks and jollies from randomly killing Kangaroos either!! You can’t have civic pride unless you take pride in your our country. As a daughter of a WWII Veteran who fought the nazi fascists in Europe and lost a home, family business, his health and eventually his life too early along with my own son taking his because he missed his grandpa, I have to say I all but fucking hate you.
I have rarely heard of a more cruel and barbaric method of dealing with this kind of problem. WHO decided that shooting from the air was ANYWHERE NEAR a humane solution? Whoever they were they are evil and should be immediately fired and prosecuted for cruelty.
WHY refuse to accept expert assistance to go in and evaluate and help these poor koalas? HOW can those wicked people who shot them sleep at night whilst many baby orphaned koalas, likely injured, slowly die in agony? It takes a really barbaric brute to do something like this. Australians!! Nasty cruel brutes!
Dreadful!!!
Omy goodness, yes please is there anything else that can be done. How sad.
Moron! Idiots ! This terrifying way is all that they could come up with??!!
It would seem the only people that really care about Koala bears …. don’t live in Australia. How can that possibly be ok. There’s no way they can guarantee the poor bears are killed instantly so they must be left to die terrified and in pain. This must stop – now.
SHOOT THE SHOOTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
STOP KILLING KOALAS IMMEDIATELY!! PUT ALL THESE CRUEL AND ABUSIVE SNIPERS IM YREES WITHOUT THEIR WEAPONS AND HACE OTHER PEOPLE WITH GUNS IN THE HELICOPTER SHOOTING AT THESE SNIPERS AND KILLING OVER 700 HUNDRED OF THEM!!!
STOP ALL ANIMAL CRUELTY AND ABUSE IMMEDIATELY!!!!!
What the hell is this world coming to? Thinking it’s alright to kill anything.This would sucks and so do it’s people.
Disgusting & totally inhumane.
Disgusting on behalf of the Ossie government??? Why is this being done anyway. This has to stop.
Sounds like something we’d do here in the US. I thought y’all were better than that.
J.,
“No it doesn’t.”
(Carol via TWD told me to say this.)
What’s wrong with you Australian people, you starting to look like Americans, killing everything that’s in your way. And the excuses you use to kill, unbelievable…
Big, bad people, so much satisfaction from shooting defenseless animals, with a gun and from above! Horrific.
This despicable, loathsome, abhorrent decision to cull animals from helicopters is another confirmation of the ugly and hideous depths humans have sunk!
WTH! …. this was a mass shooting with no thought of compassion for healthy koalas or other wildlife! Other options should have been attempted. Relocation, food supply! Humans are the main reason for the loss of habitat …but the koala pay the price!
…and here was me thinking Australians loved their koala bears. YOU ARE MURDERS!!!!! SLEEP WELL!!
I think we need The Purge for idiots that abuse and kill animals.
Australia has been exploiting koalas and kangaroos for a lot time. Such human centric violence is ugly and disgusting.
To Julie Bates and other commenters who blame the USA for animal cruelty, it happens everywhere. I’m American and an animal activist rescuing cats and kittens and fostering. I protest all animal cruelty going on here including hunting! So, we’re not all animal haters here. Look at other countries, too. This cruelty to those adorable koala bears is unconscionable.😤
The only good hunter is a dead one. Hunt the hunters.
NO animal deserves to be a victim of DEHUMANIZED, DESENSITIZED and MENTALLY-DERANGED SADISTIC PSYCHOPATHS!!
KEEP your blood-soaked hands off koalas, kangaroos and all other wild animals.
AUSTRALIANS, YOU BEHAVE LIKE PARANOID and SADISTIC BASTARDS! STOP THIS INSANITY. Koalas and kangaroos have exactly the same right to planet Earth as YOU and ME and all other species. They are our fellow earthlings.
Moreover, tormenting and killing animals has a brutalizing effect on our society and mankind as a whole. There is enough violence in the world.