The Australian Koala Foundation has confirmed that, with only 80,000 members of the species left in the wild there isn’t enough to support a new generation.
They’ve declared the marsupial ‘functionally extinct’ which means the population has dropped so low it no longer has any affect on its surrounding environment. Koalas have too few breeding adults left to support the species and any kind of genetic disease or pathogen would put the final nail in the coffin. Koalas are dying out due to effects caused by climate change. Rising temperatures are causing heatwaves that kill thousands of koalas through dehydration.
The species has also suffered hugely from deforestation. According to the Australian Koala Foundation, there are no koalas left at all in 41 out of 128 Federal environments where they have known habitats.