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“Wonderful koala” reporting
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Sam the koala is dead and I don’t feel too upset about it despite media attempts to make this seem like an event of utmost national significance. The tabloid likes of the Herald Sun, the Daily Tele and TV news newsrooms are using Sam’s death from chlamydia to pander to some imagined need for a collective outpouring of grief. It’s even compelled the Prime Minister “to lead the national mourning” for “that wonderful koala” Sam and — you couldn’t make it up — Malcolm Turnbull to want a sculpture of Sam built as a lasting symbol of the fires. “That wonderful koala”, for anyone who somehow doesn’t know, was the marsupial saved by a firefighter during the bushfires that raged across Victoria in February this year, tragically killing 173 people.
Footage of CFA volunteer firefighter David Tree offering bottled water to a grateful Sam was quickly picked up and shown by international news outlets who all loved this cute little story about an adorable fluffy animal who somehow survived against all odds. Except, em, Sam wasn’t actually rescued during those bushfires. As a couple of pesky killjoy media outlets reported a few days after the story broke, Sam was actually rescued during deliberately lit back burning operations by the CFA a week before Victoria’s deadliest bushfires. Still — never let the facts get in the way of a ripping feel good yarn. It could be argued that this is all relatively harmless — including the ludicrous suggestion at the time that David Tree was “the next Steve Irwin” — and it’s fantastic that sales of photographs of Sam and David have raised over $300,000 for firefighters and other charities. It’s just nauseating to watch certain sections of the media perpetuate an untruth and then feel proud about it while claiming to be “accurate and reliable”, as News Limited CEO John Hartigan’s comments last month about the reporting of Sam the koala’s story (“The images that appeared on television around the world carried the water mark not of Seven, Nine or Ten but of heraldsun.com.au”) illustrate. For me, the most stunning revelation out of Sam’s death is that 50% of koalas suffer from chlamydia. Cue the awareness campaign (care of master photoshopper Leigh Josey):
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12 Comments
Chlamidya affects people as well as koalas- 57,000 in Australialast year. Not much in the way of symptoms but big cause of infertility so distressing and expensive. Maybe Sam can raise the profile of Chlamidya!!
So how is it that a man is the one below the Koala and not a woman?
Ignorant, supercilious, disdainful, insensitive and nasty.
Jon - Because Sam was a girl koala (Samantha)
Pamela - Maybe people should practice safe sex then. Little sympathy for those who do not.
Such glorious irony. All this piss and wind about Sam the koala, while the *true* Wankley winner should be the “Maddie Clue” story on the bottom of the page.
“So how is it that a man is the one below the Koala and not a woman?” Must be because men are the only ones who would try to f**k a koala…
This is why I love Australia. In other countries they have murder, bombing and war stories on a daily basis. Here we get in a lather over the very unimportant death of a wee animal. That’s the kind of front page news I want to live with!
Well, all of you clever-clogs can have a right belly-laugh, now. Premier Brumby has announced that Sam the koala will be placed in honour alongside Phar Lap, in permanent remembrance of those poor people who suffered and died and our sadly decimated wildlife.
My son, a licensed shooter, who had never before killed a living creature, was detailed to search for and despatch dying and distressed and horribly maimed wildlife. Tell him and his cohort that the death of this ‘wee animal’ wasn’t of any importance. I saw tough, grown men weeping, continually, at this unwelcome but necessary chore.
I understand that many don’t appreciate the extent of the misery and destruction in this area, but Crikey should have. It’s Melbourne based.
Phar Lap was the punter’s fantasy and hope. So was Sam.
No disrespect is intended to anyone involved in February’s devastating bushfires. Sam the koala was rescued during preventative back burning operations a week before Black Saturday. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
That’s not so, Neil.
“That’s not so, Neil.”
Either you’re a troll, Anne, or you are simply utterly ignorant. I appreciate your concern to protect the feel-good story of the year, especially in light of the tragedy that occurred, but facts are facts.
Let the Death of ‘Sam the Koala’ not be in Vain.
The unfortunate death of ‘Sam the Koala’ made media headlines last week with laments coming far and wide, nationally and internationally. There is no doubt that the filming of Sam drinking from a water bottle after being burnt, was a very powerful media image, but has anyone really given much attention to the long term plight of Sam and similar bushfire survivors? What chance did Sam really have in the long term? It’s well and good to get emotional about Sam, but what about the hundreds of other koalas, like Sam who also face an uncertain future and who also suffered horrendously in the fires?.
Sam was a Strzelecki Koala, the only genetically pure koala population left in Victoria and South Australia. The Strzelecki Koalas hold the key for the preservation of the species throughout Victoria and South Australia. All other Koala populations in Victoria and South Australia suffer from diseases caused by inbreeding as they are the desecendents of only 4 animals transferred to French Island in the 1890’s.
The Strzelecki Koalas, and Victorian Koalas as a whole, are under dire threat because of habitat destruction. Nothing is being done to protect this species. There is no EFFECTIVE legal protection for the koala and it is not listed as endangered or threatened. Likewise there is no legislation to protect koala habitat. In fact the best of the remaining Strzelecki habitat is being logged at a rate of 700 hectares per year by Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), after they gained perpetual logging rights in 1998 via the sale of the Victorian Plantations Corporation by the Kennett Government. After logging 7000 hectares of koala habitat over the past decade, Hancock still don’t have an adequate Koala Management Plan. HVP now control almost all of the Strzelecki Ranges.
Releasing Strzelecki Koalas into areas outside of the Strzeleckis will weaken the gene pool of the Strzelecki Koalas and place these individuals at risk. Diseases such as chylamidia, which eventually killed Sam, increase because of stress.
The January/February 2009 Delburn and Churchill fires burnt out approximately 50% of the best remaining koala habitat in the Strzelecki Ranges. Thousands of koalas most likely perished in the fires. Those lucky enough to survive now face the daunting prospect of having to survive in habitat lost through fires but also habitat loss through clearfell logging. Apart from small patches of bush in isolated private property where can the bushfire survivors, like Sam be released?
The land that Hancock purchased cannot be protected by government as it is covered by exemptions which allow the harvest of native vegetation, regenerating native forests, as well as ‘plantations’. The Victorian Plantations Corporation Act overrides all other legislation. The land is deemed to be private land yet Local Government cannot stop Hancock logging koala habitat as there is no provision in the Planning Scheme to protect either the species or habitat.
Likewise both State and Federal Government’s refuse to recognise processes that threaten this species. It is a disgrace that the Koala is recognised internationally but not nationally. The United States listed the Koala in 2000 under the US Endangered Species Act as threatened across its entire range. Yet nothing is done in Australia to protect the species. In two generations the Victorian Koala could be gone. The koala is also under threat from climate change, according to recent research by the University of Sydney, which shows rising carbon dioxide levels are killing nutrients in the plants they eat. The higher elevation forests, critical to the survival of the Koala is also under climate change threat, through decreased rainfall, increased likelihood of wildfires and logging its remaining habitat.
Let’s not see Sam’s death be in vain. Immediate action needs to be undertaken by all levels of Government to protect as much koala habitat as possibly immediately and both John Brumby and HVP need to get serious about forest protection in the Strzelecki Ranges.
For more information contact;
Anthony Amis (03) 9419 8700, Susie Zent 51 691 588