Birth control helps koalas avoid death by starvation

摘要

KOALAS in parts of Australia have been sterilised and given long-term contraceptives to tackle overpopulation and the loss of key trees they feed on -and it seems to have worked. David Ramsey at the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research in Melbourne, Australia, and his team analysed the effect of two fertility control programmes on koala populations in areas where the animals have bred too successfully, risking starvation as numbers outstripped food supply.