AR-News: (UK) They're out of control, mate

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Environmentalists believe the koalas of Kangaroo Island are vicious pests who 
are destroying the environment and murdering indigenous species. Now, they 
want to cull them. They might as well say they want to kill Bambi. Kathy Marks 
reports
08 March 2004 
Scarcely visited until a few years ago, even by Australians, Kangaroo Island 
is acquiring a reputation as a place where tourists can spot all the unique 
wildlife for which the country is famous: kangaroos, wallabies, possums, 
platypuses and koalas.
The plentiful opportunities to glimpse koalas in the wild are the principal 
draw, especially for foreign visitors to the island, which lies off the 
southern coast of South Australia. But few people who leave suffused with a warm glow 
realise that the furry marsupials are not, in fact, native. Introduced in the 
1920s, they are wreaking havoc, stripping their favourite gum trees of leaves 
and destroying precious habitats.





full story:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=499034 
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