Endangered Koala Sterilization Program

From ABC News Online:

The South Australian Government has allocated an extra $4 million in Thursday's Budget to control koala numbers on Kangaroo Island.

The money will be used to step up the sterilisation program and to transport the animals to several spots in the state's south-east.

Premier Mike Rann says the campaign will avert an environmental disaster, but he has ruled out the possibility of a cull.

Being too cute to actually kill, the koalas will undergo a $160 operation to sterilize them. Notably, the koala sterilization program has been ongoing since 1996, so the practice is not new. However, with the new funds allocated, the story gets rerun on the front page.

The koalas being targeted live on predator-free Kangaroo Island, about 30 miles off the coast of South Australia, and there are too many for the environment to sustain. On the mainland, koalas have natural predators and human pressures to control the population. They also suffer from widespread infectious chlamydia which causes infertility in females.

Oddly, attempts to limit the population of koalas would be illegal in the U.S. since they are listed as an endangered species. This is despite the fact that the Australian government "sees no scientific evidence that it [the koala] is likely to become endangered anytime soon." Here's today's pop quiz. Since there are no indigenous koalas running wild in the U.S. and since, in Australia where they do run wild, the government sees no reason to believe that they will become endangered in the foreseeable future, then why would the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service place them on the Endangered Species List?

Interestingly, in a closely related story the House Resources Committee recently announced the results of a review of the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act. According to Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo,

"The ESA has not achieved its original intent of recovering species," the California Republican said. "In fact, there is little evidence of progress in the law's 30-year history."

The ESA was also faulted for containing a "wealth of erroneous data" on some species that has led to millions and millions of public and private dollars being wasted. One glaring example is the Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse. Disregarding the fact that the vermin was obviously named by an Earth-Is-My-Mother biologist, the Preble's mouse was listed as "threatened" and millions of dollars were spent on stalled and canceled projects and creation of a protected habitat. After a second look it was discovered that the Preble's mouse was no different than any other grub-eating, burrowing, and hanta virus carrying field mouse. OOPS!

In summary, the Australian Tree-Killing Koala population is being reduced while the, rarer-than-Sasquatch, American Cuddly Soft Koala population is protected just in case they sprout wings and fly to the United States.