Koalas face an accelerating welfare and conservation crisis driven by habitat destruction, disease, and climate change in Australia.
Koalas face a compound welfare crisis combining acute suffering from disease, injury, and fire with chronic pressure from habitat fragmentation. Chlamydia causes painful ocular and urogenital disease in wild koalas, and treatment requires capture and antibiotic therapy that itself causes stress. The combination of disease, habitat loss, and climate change creates a situation where population recovery requires simultaneous attention to individual welfare and systemic threats.