Koala: Endangered Animals and Humans

Koalas in Australia are dying off because of the severe wildfires spreading rapidly throughout the environment. The fires are ruining so much of the vegetation and habitat for koalas and other animals like kangaroo that they have nowhere to go and have been slowly dying of severe burns and smoke inhalation. Even after rescue the survival rate of these animals is incredibly low, its very sad to watch these animals go through something like this.

Since the fires started a few months ago billions of animal lives have been feared lost, and the already dwindling population of koalas have been hit with thousands of deaths. Different organizations have been making an effort to rescue and nurture the animals back to full health using mittens on burned hands and water to rehydrate the animals.

Animal rescue dogs have been being used to sniff out the koalas and retrieve them from bushfires. Some of the rescue dogs are trained to sniff out and recognize koala feces whereas a border collie named bear is capable of sniffing out koala fur and signaling if koalas are in an area. This tells humans to begin a search. Bears work was done in Ngunya Jargoon, an Indigenous protected area. 85% of the habitat had been destroyed and bear located 30-40 koalas.

The effort to rescue animals in Australia is increasing as the animal’s population lowers, koalas are native to Australia and are in serious danger of extinction. Celebrities and organizations have come together to try and raise money but for many animals it might be too late.

Kangaroos are also another animal suffering in the wildfires of Australia. In kangaroo island off the coast of south Australia. Up to 600 square miles of the island has been reported to be burnt by the fires. In the past few weeks we have been airdropping thousands of pounds of food like sweet potatoes to the wallabies and other starving animals.

Operation rock Wallaby is aiming to provide a helping hand to the animals still on the ground. The operation includes a bunch of planes loaded up with carrots and sweet potatoes that will fly over and drop the food supply where the animals are stranded. This will help keep the ones we can’t reach or find alive as most of the habitat and animals’ food has been torched. As of now over 4,000 pounds of vegetables have been dropped in south wales along the key rock-wallaby colonies.

The rock-wallaby which is the animal the operation is named after is a small marsupial similar to koalas and kangaroos. They feed on grass, vegetables and fruit.

Animals that are rescued are transferred to animal shelters. These shelters like the the ones that take in the animals from the wildfires in Australia. It is important to rescue these animals because some of them are already in danger of going extinct. Animals have effects on humans just as much as we can affects them.

Because of our large impact on the earth and the environment. We take up space with carbon emitting factories and cut down forests for our convenient highways. All these things make human life better but severely mess with animal’s ecosystems. Illegal hunting of animals like the Bengal tiger and the African elephant are putting the animals at serious risk of extinction in our lifetime. Scientists estimate Bengal tigers being gone by 2045. By the end of the 21st century a hundred species will have died off every day.

Humans play a major role in the main problem for many species of animals, habitat loss. Habitats have been fragmented by highways and road construction and this causes the ecosystem to not be as efficient leading to animal population decline. This also effects species in the water with new dams and other water diverting projects like bridges it complicates the natrual flow of an environment and leads to death.

Habitat degradation is on more of a global scale with the rabid production of human goods using large factories. These factories emit dangerous greenhouse gases and effectively poison the land surrounding them and the air for thousands of miles. Many places are harmed so severely from this they no longer support native species.

The biggest and possibly the most controversial way animals have been affected is by climate change. The natural and unnatural change of temperature across the world messes with animals homes and food sources, also making the area unsuitable for animals needing a cold or warm climate. Though it seems like a small thing to humans this is more a gradual thing that happens to be accelerating in recent years. The average surface temperature of the earth has gone up 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the year 1900.

A serious side effect of the heat increase is sea levels rising. Sea levels rising causes not only problems for humans but also issues for animal species such as the polar bear. The melting ice caps is meaning the loss of habitat for these bears who require cold land to live on. The increasing temperature means that the polar bears food source is also going away.

Humans lives are heavily impacted by the presence of animals, not only are they our food source, our helping hands on farms but also our pets and friends. Animals and humans have lived together for thousands of years, dogs have adapted from wolves to be suited for human living conditions, this has caused hundreds of breeds to develop over time as the survival rate of these canines went up dramatically once we started helping them.

Using animals as pets has created a positive relationship that mankind has benefited greatly from. Using animals for farming as sped up our process of growing and catering to the crops needs. Heavy lifting and pulling done by horses and ox has made our jobs easier and go faster, these animals help us and the upside for them is a safe place to live, on human farms.

Animals like dogs and cats understand human emotion and some have even learned how to comfort humans going through depression or stress. Dogs have been known to protect a house of humans from intruders or take bullets for policemen working as their partner. What makes an animals mind make the decision to put humans first? Why is it dogs put them self at risk for us even without training? It is because like humans, pets can feel emotion intensely and love unconditionally.

Animals also have helped us make plenty of advances in the field of medicine and other sciences. Previously the hormone insulin, which controls how much sugar gets absorbed into the blood stream could not be artificially made for people like diabetics. Dogs are trained to see for the blind and guide them to safety during day to day lives. Some dogs are even capable of sniffing out anaphylactic shock and alerting its owner to seek medical help or use its EpiPen.

Human lives wouldn’t be the same without animals, they give us our needed food source with farming, they release chemicals like serotonin and oxytocin the feel good and sleep chemicals when cuddling. They also improve self-esteem and life expectancy as people who had a bond with an animal companion reported feeling better about themselves and people tend to live a few years longer on average when they are pet owners.

The prevention of fruits and vegetables going extinct is because of animals that disperse and pollinate. Without them our food would be gone. Animals are important to humans, they benefit us economically, socially and invidiously, and because of this they are worth keeping around. They are worth risking our lives for because in many ways they are equal to us and we call them family.

1. Yeung, Jessie. “Millions of Animals Are Dying from the Australian Wildfires.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Jan. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/australia/australia-fire-wildlife-deaths-intl-hnk-scli/index.html.
2. “The Power of Pets.” National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 6 Mar. 2018, newsinhealth.nih.gov/2018/02/power-pets.
3. Leahy, Stephen. “Polar Bears Really Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Study Shows.” Polar Bears Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Melting Sea Ice, Study Shows, 1 Feb. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/02/polar-bears-starve-melting-sea-ice-global-warming-study-beaufort-sea-environment/.
4. Michel, Alexandra. “Humans Are Animals, Too: A Whirlwind Tour of Cognitive Biology.” Association for Psychological Science – APS, www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/humans-are-animals-too-a-whirlwind-tour-of-cognitive-biology.