First published January 5, 2020.
No, koalas are not functionally extinct. During Australia's 2019–20 bushfires, the head of the Australian Koala Foundation, Deborah Tabart, told Daily Mail Australia that the species had become "functionally extinct". The phrase spread around the world, but it was never an established scientific finding. Koalas still breed across much of their range, and in some southern areas there are so many that they damage their own food trees.
What is true is serious enough. The fires killed large numbers of koalas, destroyed habitat in New South Wales and Queensland, and contributed to the Australian government listing the koala as endangered in those states and the ACT in February 2022. This article explains what "functionally extinct" means, what happened to koalas in the fires, and where the species stands now.
What "functionally extinct" really means
Ecologists use "functionally extinct" in two related ways. One describes a population so small that it can no longer produce enough young to sustain itself, even if a few animals are still alive. The other describes a species that has become so rare it no longer plays its normal role in the ecosystem. The BBC's explainer for young readers gave a simple version: too few breeding pairs left to make a new generation likely, often with low genetic variety that leaves animals more vulnerable to disease.
Neither description fitted koalas as a whole in 2019. A species can be in steep decline, and particular local populations can be wiped out, without the species being beyond recovery. That distinction matters, because it shapes whether people think protection is still worth the effort. It clearly is.
What the 2019–20 fires did to koalas
The 2019–20 fire season, often called the Black Summer, burned about 24 million hectares across Australia. Researchers at the University of Sydney initially estimated that hundreds of millions of mammals, birds and reptiles were affected, later revising the figure past a billion; a wider study put the number of animals killed or displaced at around three billion, most of them reptiles.
Koalas were badly hit because they live high in eucalyptus trees, move slowly and tend to climb upwards rather than flee. Eucalyptus leaves are also rich in flammable oils. Early in the season, fires near Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast burned through Lake Innes Nature Reserve, a well-known koala area. Tabart and other observers suggested at the time that some 350 koalas may have died there, though nobody could count accurately while the fires were still burning.
350 - 600 koalas have died in the
— MR. ®️ight 👅 (@Hiimroi) November 16, 2019
NSW fires! 💔
Cto pic.twitter.com/yJJWejYMcn
(This post is no longer available on X.)
Crowdy Bay National Park, Bellangry State Forest and areas around Taree were also burned, and fires reached koala habitat in Queensland, including near Crows Nest west of Brisbane. Later in the summer, fire swept through about a third of Kangaroo Island in South Australia, home to a large koala population that had numbered around 48,000.
The endangered listing and today's numbers
The fires did not act alone. They hit a species already under pressure. In February 2022 the federal government changed the koala's status under its national environment law from vulnerable to endangered for the populations of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Bushfire losses were part of the reasoning, alongside long-term decline.
Population estimates vary widely depending on method. The Threatened Species Scientific Committee estimated about 92,000 koalas in 2021, down from 185,000 two decades earlier. The Australian Koala Foundation gave 43,000 to 100,000 in 2022. A national monitoring programme run by CSIRO later produced a much higher estimate of roughly 730,000 to 920,000 koalas nationally, which it attributes largely to improved detection methods. These numbers are not directly comparable, but none of them describes a species that has stopped functioning.
Koalas in parts of Victoria and South Australia are thriving, sometimes to the point of overgrazing, as on Cape Otway and French Island. The worry is concentrated in the north-east, where losses have been steepest.
The bigger threats: habitat, disease, dogs and cars
Fires make headlines, but the slow pressures do more damage over time:
- Habitat clearing. Koalas have lost more than half of their former range since European settlement, largely through land clearing for farms and housing. Fragmented bushland leaves small groups cut off from each other.
- Chlamydia. This bacterial disease can cause eye infections, blindness and infertility. In a long-running New South Wales rehabilitation study it was the second most common reason koalas were admitted for care. Vaccine trials are under way.
- Dogs and cars. Together they kill thousands of koalas each year, especially where suburbs meet bushland.
- Heat and drought. Koalas get most of their water from leaves. Hotter, drier conditions reduce leaf moisture and push animals to the ground, where they are more exposed. Climate models suggest the koala's range will shrink in the drier east and south.
The Australian Koala Foundation has long argued that existing laws are too weak and has campaigned for a dedicated Koala Protection Act, a proposal it drafted in 2016. Governments have responded with recovery plans and habitat funding, though conservation groups continue to debate whether these go far enough.
Koalas remain one of Australia's best-loved national symbols. A cheerful blue koala named Borobi was even the mascot of the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Koala Hospital Port Macquarie and the rescue effort
The fires prompted a remarkable wave of public support. Koala Hospital Port Macquarie, a non-profit that treats sick and injured wild koalas and releases them back to the bush, took in dozens of burned animals from the surrounding fire grounds.
Its GoFundMe appeal started with a modest goal, reported at around 25,000 Australian dollars, and went on to raise more than 1.7 million. The hospital's clinical director, Cheyne Flanagan, said the money would go towards around 100 drinking stations fitted with wildlife cameras for burned areas along the coast, a wild koala breeding programme, and enclosures that could act as safe "arks" if future fires struck.
Donations surged after a video of a rescue near Long Flat went viral. A local woman, Toni Doherty, ran towards a burning area, wrapped a badly burned koala in her shirt and poured water over him. The hospital named him Ellenborough Lewis. Sadly his burns worsened despite treatment, and the hospital decided to put him to sleep for welfare reasons in late November 2019.
Other help came on four legs. In Queensland and New South Wales, specially trained koala detection dogs such as Bear searched burned bushland so that rescuers could find surviving koalas quickly.
A trained koala detection dog, named Bear, is sniffing out charred bushland for injured animals that have been caught in Queensland and NSW bushfires. https://t.co/Ome4hpHUJp #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/MTG8eoppPS
— 7NEWS Wide Bay (@7NewsWideBay) November 19, 2019
How to help koalas
- Support local carers. Licensed wildlife groups and koala hospitals rely on donations and volunteers.
- Drive carefully at dusk and night in koala areas, and report injured animals to a local wildlife rescue line rather than handling them yourself.
- Keep dogs inside or contained at night if you live near bushland.
- Plant local koala food trees where appropriate, and back efforts to protect habitat corridors.
- Be wary of dramatic claims. Accurate status reports from government assessments and scientists help direct effort where it is needed most.
The koala's story is one of real loss in some regions and resilience in others. It is not the end of the species, and that is exactly why protection now can make a difference. For more on the wider toll, see our piece on the animals lost in Australia's bushfires, and for a happier tale, a golden retriever who rescued a baby koala.
Sources: Daily Mail Australia: the "functionally extinct" claim; BBC Newsround: what functionally extinct means; Wikipedia: Koala (status, population, threats); Wikipedia: 2019–20 Australian bushfire season; InQueensland: koala listed as endangered (February 2022); Port Macquarie News: Koala Hospital fundraiser; Gulf Today: Ellenborough Lewis the koala; embedded posts by Koala Hospital Port Macquarie and 7NEWS Wide Bay.
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