Dozens of Koalas killed by loggers clearing bluegum plantation: ‘Australia should be ashamed of this’

In yet another inhumane and scarring incident that occurred in Portland, Victoria, at least a dozen koalas were killed and about 60 seriously injured during the clearing of a bluegum plantation. 

Only two weeks after Australia’s worst bushfire which claimed lives of around 8,000 koalas, a logging company took the lives of a few more by bulldozing 140 acres to the ground. 

Helen Oakley, a registered nurse, upon surveying the remains of the cleared region told Dailymail, that the loggers “bulldozed 140 acres now and have just killed all of our koalas.” In a heart-wrenching video, she says, “here are koalas lying there dead. Mothers killed with their little babies.”

Blaming the government responsible for not acting against the crippling issue, Oakley said “nobody has done anything. Australia should be ashamed of this... We need help” 

She also said that koalas were so badly injured from the massacre that even the ones rescued had to be put to sleep. “The surviving koalas are being brought down from trees and the vets are checking them for hydration and malnutrition as they're all covered in ticks... a lot of them had to be euthanized,” she said. 

Describing the horrifying sight, Oakley stated that she’s had “never seen so many koalas in a concentrated area like this and so much death and smell.”

Meanwhile, addressing the issue, the local MP for the region, Andy Meddick, said, “As bushfires ravage parts of our state, killing millions of native animals, a bluegum plantation full of koalas is being cleared in my electorate of Western Victoria. According to local sources, hundreds of koalas have been impacted. Some have been killed, many injured.”

He assured that he would do all he can in finding a resolution to the issue. 

In the recent bushfire, at least 8,000 koalas which formed nearly a third of the entire population in New South Wales perished.