CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Koalas in Australia's southeastern state of Victoria will receive contraceptive implants to keep their numbers down.

    Up to 2,000 female koalas will be implanted with a slow-releasehormone in the next 10 weeks at Mt Eccles National Park, said Victorian Environment Minister John Thwaites on Friday.

    Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio quoted the official as saying that the number of the furry marsupials living on numbers are too high in some areas, especially in the west of the state, and the local vegetation is being destroyed.

    The new koala management strategy is designed to protect the koalas and their environment.

    "That will ensure that the population is kept at a manageable level and that the koalas will be able to survive into the future," he said.

    "This strategy seeks to manage our koala populations across thestate to ensure that we don't have wide scale destruction of the vegetation that they eat," he said. Enditem