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Article: Australia tackles a cute conundrum: Koalas are endangered in parts of northern Australia. But on Kangaroo Island they're multiplying and destroying the trees.(World)(A Letter From Kangaroo Island)(Australia)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- July 18, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As a boy on his family's farm, Andrew Kelly used to revel in spotting koalas.
"It'd be quite a novelty to see one," he recalled. But his childhood delight has turned into an adult dilemma.
By the time Kelly was running the 4,500-acre sheep farm with his father in the 1980s, the koala population had swelled: It wasn't unusual to see three or four in a grove of squat manna gum trees. By the early 1990s "it got way out of hand," Kelly says. Sighting 60 or 70 on a walk became the rule.
The koala is now the subject of emotional discussion among Australians, and Kangaroo Island, where efforts are under way to control the population, is one of the ...