Page 1

PASSAGE 24

Weekly Reader News heads down under to find out what scientists are doing to save Australia’s

koalas.

Koalas are pictured everywhere in Australia – on cleaning products, on boxes of chocolate, on sports

team jerseys.

Yet the animals live only in pockets along the east coast. The marsupials once inhabited the entire

coastline. (A marsupials is a mammal that typically carries its young in a pouch.)

The koala’s population dropped after farmers cut down many of the forests where koalas lived and

hunters killed the animals for their fur. Buy the early 1900s, “koalas were basically shot out of south

Australia,” says ecologist Bill Ellis. An ecologist is a scientist who studies the relationships among living

things and their environments.

I recently joined Ellis and his team in a forest on St. Bees Island, 19 miles off the northeastern coast of

Australia, with eight other volunteers. The island is a natural laboratory, yielding findings that may help

protect koalas elsewhere on the continent.

Trees Tags

The volunteers combed the island for koalas in the blue gum trees. When we found a koala, we

gathered information about the trees in the area.

Blue gum is a species of eucalyptus tree in which the furry leaf eaters spend most of their time.

Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, and their leaves are the main food source for koalas. Although

koalas can walk on the ground, they are better suited for life in the canopy, the high cover of branches and

leaves in a forest.

Goat Trouble?

What has Ellis’s research told him so far? The St. Bees population seems to be healthy. Yet Ellis

wonders whether the koalas might be heading for hard times. The island is overrun with wild goats, and

Ellis thinks the goats are eating the small blue gum trees.

Without those trees, the koalas will run out of food in the future. Ellis hopes more research will help

him understand how to protect the blue gums – and the koalas that depend on them. “I think that’s what

everyone is trying to do – to make a difference,” Ellis says.

(Weekly Reader 2007)

Question 1. Though koalas can walk on the ground, they are better suited for life

.

A. on island off the northeastern coast

B. in the high cover of branches and leaves in the forest

C. by the coastline

D. inside of the blue gum tree

Question 2. Why do you think the koalas no longer inhabit the entire coastline?

A. The koalas have moved to a drier environment.

B. Koalas have been killed by hunters.

C. Koalas have been moved to zoos for protection

D. Disease has caused the koalas to decrease in population.

Question 3. How does the author organize the information in this passage?