FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, October 6, 1995
CONTACT:
D.J. Schubert, (202) 588-5206
Sue Arnold, (206) 583-0300 room 603
WASHINGTON -- In a letter delivered today to Ms. Mollie Beattie, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Fund for Animals and Australians for Animals threatened to file suit against the Service should it not act on a petition to list the koala under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The petition, originally filed in May 1994, provides substantial evidence demonstrating the massive destruction of koalas and koala habitat in Australia. By law, the Service must publish a finding on the petition one year after receiving it.
"The Service's failure to comply with its own mandate is pushing the koala closer to the precipice of extinction," states D.J. Schubert, Wildlife Biologist representing The Fund for Animals. "The koala will likely fall off that precipice if drastic action is not taken to protect koalas from the timber, agriculture, and development interests. A positive response to the petition would send a clear wake-up call to Australian authorities about their mismanagement of koala habitat."
According to some of the best recognized koala experts, who submitted affidavits supporting the petition, the future of koala throughout their native range in Australia is bleak unless drastic action is taken immediately. Dr. Tony Norton, a Research Fellow in Ecology and Biological Sciences at the Australian National University, predicts that "a number of populations across the species' range . . . could be extinct before the end of the century."
According to Sue Arnold, President of Australians for Animals, "The Australian government is prepared to sell practically every tree in its dwindling forests and develop every plot of land, regardless of the ecological consequences -- including the extinction of the koala and other species." (Ms. Arnold is in the U.S. and is available for interviews at the above telephone number.)
In related news, The Fund for Animals, Australians for Animals, and other wildlife protection organizations were recently successful in pressuring the government of Queensland, Australia to stop construction of the massive Eastern Tollway that would have decimated the largest remaining piece of koala habitat in Queensland.
Adds Cleveland Amory, Founder and President of The Fund for Animals, "I can't think of a more charming animal than the koala. If we won't protect them, what chance do the homely animals have?"
The Fund for Animals is a national animal protection organization based at 200 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019. Australians for Animals is based in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
To see a copy of the letter, click here.