BEIJING, April 11 -- Extreme drought, ferocious bushfires and urban development are killing Australia's koalas and could push the species toward extinction within a decade, environmentalists are warning.

    Alarms about the demise of the iconic and peculiar animal, which sleeps about 20 hours per day and eats only the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, have been raised before.

    But Deborah Tabart, chief executive officer of the Australia Koala Foundation, believes the animal's plight is as bad as she has seen it in her 20 years as a koala advocate.

    "In southeast Queensland we had them listed as a vulnerable species which could go to extinction within 10 years. That could now be seven years," she said. "The koala's future is obviously bleak."

    Southeastern Queensland has the strongest koala populations in the vast country, meaning extinction in this area spells disaster for the future of the species, said Tabart.

    The biggest threat is the loss of habitat due to road building and development on Australia's eastern coast, traditional koala country. The joke, said Tabart, is that koalas enjoy good real estate and are often pushed out of their habitat by farming or development.

    "I've driven pretty much the whole country and I just see environmental vandalism and destruction everywhere I go," she said. "It's a very sorry tale. There are (koala) management problems all over the country."

    Massive bushfires which raged in the country's south for weeks during the Australian summer, burning a million hectares of land, would also have killed thousands of koalas.

    Meanwhile, there is the worst drought in a century, genetic mutations from decades of inbreeding in some populations, and the widespread incidence of chlamydia, a type of venereal disease which affects fertility, to further cut koala numbers.

    Moreover, the animals are often fatally attacked by pet dogs. "In southeast Queensland the koalas are just in people's backyards and the dogs just munch on them," Tabart said.

    Confusing the issue is the lack of data on the number of koalas in the wild. Figures range from 100,000 animals to several million. What is known is that there were once millions of them ranged along eastern Australia.

    The hunting and slaughter for their furs in the 1920s eradicated the species in the state of South Australia and pushed Victorian populations close to extinction.

    (Source: China Daily/Agency)