Australian province shoots 700 koalas
What’s morally preferable: leaving hundreds of koalas to die in a destroyed habitat or shooting them out of a plane?
The question spooking the international community after the government of Victoria, Australia, has used aircraft to shoot 700 koalas after bushfires destroyed 2,200 hectares (5,436 acres) of their habitat in Budj Bim National Park in recent weeks, publications including British outlet the Guardian have reported. The impacted land reportedly including a large area of manna gum, a key food source for the koalas.
The government's action has become a topic of heated debate among observers not only in Australia, but across the globe.
“National parks are the last bastion for our wildlife, and the increasing severity of bushfires and other extreme weather events puts Australia’s incredible native species like the koala at significant risk,” Lisa Palma, CEO and executive director of Wildlife Victoria, told the Guardian, describing the move as “the most compassionate course of action.”
“The tragic reality is that bushfires typically lead to substantive loss of life and suffering for our wildlife.”
The Australian government emphasized that the killing was “was not taken lightly,” saying that the decision was informed by veterinarians and leading wildlife welfare ethics experts.
“The options were to just leave them to deteriorate or take proactive steps to reduce suffering by using aerial assessments,” James Todd, the Australian government’s chief biodiversity officer, told the Guardian.
“This is quite a drastic response,” said Desley Whisson, professor of wildlife ecology at Deakin University, in an interview with the Guardian. “But if you’ve got helicopters flying over an area and you see hundreds of koalas that are burnt, or covered in fire retardant, or otherwise showing signs of distress, I think you would want to make a decision to put them out of their misery.”
Some question the effectiveness of the aerial culling and note whether a grounds-based approach would have been more effective.
Noting that any emergency response to curb the koala population in Victoria, which has large numbers of the species as compared to other areas where koalas are endangered, is only a quick solution. Rolf Schlagloth, a koala ecologist at Central Queensland University, argued that “the real issue is the lack of connectivity and failing to properly manage koala habitat and native vegetation.”
Online users based in Korea also decried the killing, with comments regarding the incident questioning whether the most ethical way to relieve the animals of pain was shooting them with guns from above.