AUSTRALIAN BEARS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1932, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN BEARS

PRESERVATION EFFORTS.

DEATH IN A SANCTUARY.

Sydney, June 2.

The fact that, even with the exigent cies of space on account .of the State election, ths 'Sydney Press-devoted con-: siderable- space to the last hours, and death of a koala in a. sanctuary .a? few miles beyond the city, reflects strikingly the warm place that these quaint, but rapidly-disappearing little Australian animals, known popularly as “Teddy” bears, occupy in the hearts of the community. The koala live among ,the Australian gum trees and other big timber. In private and public sanctuaries in both New South Wales and Victoria strong efforts, regardless of expense, are being made to preserve the little animals.

What is inexplicable, since the little animals are quite harmless, is that the Australian Governments, for the revenue derived from the export of the pelts, have allowed them in the past to be slaughtered wholesale. The massacre of native bears in Queensland a few years ago is still fresh in the outraged memory of animal lovers. The Government of the period proclaimed an open season, and hundreds of thousands of the helpless little animals were destroyed. Most of the pelts were exported. In Victoria, where the koala is now protected, there are two big sanctuaries. Recently they made a quaint exodus there from one spot to another. With their fur-coated little babies clinging to their backs, they moved off with the discipline of an army on the march. In the spot which they had vacated their favourite food of gum leaves was running short, and an insect pest had also been putting them on even shorter rations. The sanctuaries do not have to be officially protected; the residents in the neighbourhood watch over them most closely. Neither money nor most expert attention could save the little native bear which died in the New South Wales sanctuary recently, following a long struggle against pneumonia and opthalmia. Eight gallons of the finest eucalyptus oil, valued at something like £7, were sent to the sanctuary as a gift by a man keenly interested in the little bear’s fight for life. But when the bear, soothed by the oil, and tended as carefully as any human babj-, seemed to be on the road to recovery, it suffered a relapse and died. Every day there came to the sanctuary messages and letters—one even from Queensland—inquiring as to the progress of the little bear. Koalas die in numbers from pneumonia, and also from eye trouble. Pneumonia among them takes strange forms. Sometimes there is coughing, and also sneezing. At times there are no outward signs except a loss of appetite.