Climate Change Attacking All the Cutest Animals

Go look at your favorite storybook from when you were a child and find your favorite animals. Now, get ready, cause they’re next. Global warming seems to be targeting all the cutest creatures in the animal kingdom – first it was honeybees, then bats, penguins and polar bears… now koala bears are threatened! For the love of all that is holy, river otters better make it through this, because they are the cutest things EVER.

From Celsias:

According to MSNBC, Professor of Biology at Sydney University, Ian Hume, has found that CO2 pollution reduces the nutrients in eucalyptus leaves and raises their toxicity, thereby adversely affecting the koalas main source of food. Basically, not only are the koalas getting less nutrients from their food, they are also getting toxins that interfere with nutrient absorption when they feast on their regular diet of eucalyptus leaves. The results may be less available food as eucalyptus species die out from temperature changes, less nutritious feed, a lot of emaciated koala bears, less koala babies and a drastic reduction in their numbers over the next 5 decades.

Koalas already have it rough. Eucalyptus leaves are not particularly nutritious, so they have to eat a lot and sleep even more to save their energy. Eucalyptus trees, their main source of food, are also very susceptible to temperature changes. Koalas breed only once a year and have just one joey at a time. In recent decades, they have been displaced from their native habitats in Australia by suburban growth and agricultural developments.

Sad! Whatever your favorite animal is, join or start some kind of group to save it. I’m lookin’ at you, wallaby lovers.

Link [Celsias]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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