The resulting habitat maps are being offered to government agencies and developers. With the arrival of European settlers, slaughter of the animals for their pelts quickly reduced their numbers. A nadir of sorts occurred in the 1920s when three million koalas were killed. Australia then passed legislation banning the trade and export of pelts. Now, according to AKF Executive Director Deborah Tabart, koalas face an even more dismal fate as a result of habitat destruction.
Koalas depend solely on eucalyptus trees for food and shelter.
The foundation asserts that hundreds of thousands of such acreage has been destroyed in the past 20 years and destruction continues virtually unabated as the human population expands into the areas where koalas live. Further hampering preservation efforts is the scarcity of reliable statistical data with which to measure the koala population. Tabart notes that when she first joined the foundation in 1986, estimates placed the population at approximately 400,000. She soon learned, however, that the number was only a guess and that until the foundation began its work, no solid numbers on koala depletion, habitat or migration existed. To bolster its efforts, the AKF set out to establish credible statistical evidence on the koala.