Koala: A Historical BiographyThe koala is both an Australian icon and an animal that has attained flagship status around the world. Yet its history tells a different story. While the koala figured prominently in Aboriginal Dreaming and Creation stories, its presence was not recorded in Australia until 15 years after white settlement. Then it would figure as a scientific oddity, despatched to museums in Britain and Europe, a native animal driven increasingly from its habitat by tree felling and human settlement, and a subject of relentless hunting by trappers for its valuable fur. It was not until the late 1920s that slowly emerging protective legislation and the enterprise of private protectors came to its aid. This book surveys the koalas fascinating history, its evolutionary survival in Australia for over 30 million years, its strikingly adaptive physiognomy, its private life, and the strong cultural impact it has had through its rich fertilisation of Australian literature. The work also focuses on the complex problems of Australias national wildlife and conservation policies and the challenges surrounding the environmental, economic and social questions concerning koala management. Koala embraces the story of this famous marsupial in an engaging historical narrative, extensively illustrated from widely sourced pictorial material. |
Contents
1 The land that waited | 1 |
2 Science and art | 15 |
3 Putting the animals on the map | 31 |
4 The upsidedown world | 51 |
5 The indigenous people | 71 |
6 Field and metropolis | 87 |
7 Fire fur and guns | 113 |
8 The literary koala | 131 |
9 Colin MacKenzie and the amazingkoala shoulder | 145 |
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Aborigines anatomy appeared Australian Koala Foundation Australian mammals biology birds botanical breeding British Museum Bunyip Bunyip Bluegum bush bushfires caecum Canberra century climb Colin MacKenzie collection colony continent creatures Darwin drawings early echidna eucalyptus evolutionary extinction female koala Ferdinand Bauer fire Fleay Flinders forest fossil Gould gum trees habitat Hunter Island John kangaroo koala conservation koala habitat koala management koala populations land Library of Australia living Lunney Magic Pudding mammals Mammals of Australia marsupials Melbourne monotremes muscle National Library National Parks native animals native bear native fauna Natural History naturalist Norman Lindsay observed Phascolarctos cinereus Plate platypus Port pouch protection published Puddin Queensland record Reproduced courtesy Richard Owen River Riversleigh Sanctuary scientific settlement settlers Sir Joseph Banks Sloth Society of London South Australia South Wales species specimens Sydney Taronga Taronga Zoo teeth tion tralian unique Victoria watercolours wombat wrote young zoological zoologists