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A comment on Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destroy 80% of Their Habitat.

Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by jacquesm on Sunday November 24, 2019 @12:52PM (#21622020)
There will come a time when we can only view the most interesting wildlife that was common a hundred years ago only in pictures and movies. Super sad. As a kid I had an encyclopedia of all the animals, not a kids book but a pretty serious book with a page per species. I wonder how many of those that were still around back then (1975) are gone today. Probably not a happy answer to that question.

Koala's still stand a chance of survival if humanity wishes it to be so.

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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by legostormtroopr on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:15PM (#21622190)
Koalas have never been super common. And are a really shitty animal.

Their preferred food, eucalyptus, is low in calories and high in toxicity. Koalas have almost no brain folds and are really, really dumb.

They can’t recognise leaves if they aren’t on a tree. People love them because they are cute loving teddy bears, but they don’t have a strong evolutionary niche.

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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by brudgers on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:40PM (#21622337)
Real time interesting wildlife: https://www.elephantseal.org/view.htm

Worth the drive when visiting the Bay Area. They’re about the size and weight of an F150.

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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by stan_rogers on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:16PM (#21622199)
Was it, perchance, the Larousse? I loved that book.
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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by jacquesm on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:26PM (#21622258)
Interesting, never thought of looking it up, this was the book:

https://www.boekwinkeltjes.nl/b/103530821/De-grote-encyclope...

For sale on the local ebay equivalent for 1,50 euros... a steal at that price:

https://www.marktplaats.nl/a/boeken/dieren-en-huisdieren/m14...

The ad has some of the contents in it, most of the images were b&w with only very few pages in color. Still, I loved that book and tried real hard to learn it by heart.

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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by stan_rogers on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:32PM (#21622293)
Similar in scale and tone to the Larousse, certainly. Every kid should have one in their life.
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Re:Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Fires Destr... by saagarjha on Sunday November 24, 2019 @01:13PM (#21622180)
I’m not sure about that; they’d probably just be extinct in the wild and confined to shelters and zoos.
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