Sad reality behind baby koala's desperate roadside act
Wildlife volunteers continue to plead with the community for help as road death tolls continue to escalate.
A harrowing image of a baby koala trying to climb a roadside pole on the side of a motorway shows the distressing situation for wildlife near Australia's cities.
Lydia Govelli, a volunteer rescuer with Wildlife Rescue Australia, was driving down the notorious Bacchus Marsh Road in Melbourne in the early hours of January 12 after a night shift when she saw a koala joey frantically running down the side of the road. She pulled over to get him while he tried to climb a reflective guardrail, eventually capturing him and leaving him with an experienced carer. His mum was never found.
The following day around the same time, Lydia was driving home from work on the same stretch of road and found another koala, slightly older but sadly hit and killed on the far left white line. "It was certainly quite avoidable," Lydia told Yahoo News Australia. "Drivers just don't care."
These two incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Koalas and other wildlife are being struck down and killed by "reckless drivers" every day, with over 10 million animals hit on Aussie roads yearly.
A notorious stretch of road for wildlife deaths
Bacchus Marsh Road is known for its wildlife-vehicle strikes and car crashes. Wire rope barriers were installed in recent years in a bid to improve safety but Lydia argues more wildlife deaths occur with them, as the barriers are so high kangaroos get "hooked" on them when trying to get across.
"They told us they would be low enough to jump over and they're not," Lydia said, while explaining that kangaroos already struggle to grip on roads so can easily slip while trying to cross them.
"I'm so disheartened. The number of kangaroos I'm seeing dead on these barriers, hooked up in [them] or laying around them, it's not funny," she said. "Those barriers are just death to wildlife."
Fears koalas are on the road to extinction
In 2022, koalas were listed as endangered in NSW, ACT and Queensland, and in 2023, in just one generation of koalas, the number of fatalities from vehicle strikes around Sydney’s basin doubled — and in some places quintupled. Experts warn they will be extinct in NSW by 2050 without major changes.
The constant displacement of koalas as development continues and the escalating road deaths are two main issues severely impacting koala, and other wildlife, populations, with rescue groups across the country pleading for the community to step up. "Everybody can help," Lydia urged.
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Changing attitudes towards wildlife
The Kangaroo Harvesting Program (KHP) was introduced in 2019 as a commercial harvesting method used for human and animal consumption. Combined with the Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW) permit system, the state has two types of "kangaroo control" methods.
"I've been doing wildlife rescue for about 25 years and people's attitudes are worse, they are so bad," Lydia shares. "I'll be honest, a lot of it is since the Victorian Government started kangaroo killing again and [labelling] kangaroos as pests."
Kangaroo harvesters are asked to comply with regulations, including being accredited in firearm proficiency and game collection skill sets. They are also required to conform to national standards. Welfare rules include imploring shooters to kill kangaroos with a single headshot to avoid suffering, and bludgeoning joeys to death when their mothers are harvested.
Supervision by the authorities is not required as a standard, and when mistakes are made, "cleaning up" is often left to volunteers.
The state’s peak wildlife rescue group Wildlife Victoria previously told Yahoo News Australia it has received a huge amounts of calls to assist kangaroos suffering shooting injuries since the harvest began.
If you see injured wildlife, please contact your local wildlife rescue immediately. If they seem deceased but have a pouch, Lydia urges the public to check it for a joey.
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