Australia has listed the koala as an endangered species across most of its east coast, after a dramatic decline in numbers. The once-thriving marsupial has been ravaged by land clearing ...

This story appears in the May 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. It’s two in the morning and a koala is caught in barbed wire on a fence, like a prisoner trying to escape. A phone rings ...

Only about 10% of all eucalypts are edible for koalas. The favoured species depend on location; at Port Stephens the preferred species are Eucalyptus robusta and Eucalyptus tereticornis but koalas ...

This could then be used as part of a breeding programme to future-proof the species and improve its genetic diversity, they say. Bushfires in recent years have killed tens of thousands of koalas.

So as Save the Koala month approaches, leading conservation groups are calling for immediate government action to protect the species. Dr Stuart Blanch is a Conservation Scientist with the World ...