Contraceptives to be implanted in thousands of koalas
Date: Wednesday, July 30 @ 13:44:37 CDT
Topic: Archive of stories pre April 2007
Australian wildlife officers plan to implant contraceptive devices in thousands of female koalas at a park overpopulated with the animals.
The koalas, blamed with eating away the tree canopy, will have a small plastic tube inserted under their skin.
The device will slowly release hormones similar to those found in the human contraceptive pill, a spokesman for Mount Eccles National Park in Victoria state said.
It is the first time such a scheme has been carried out on a large scale.
"There's up to 10,000 koalas in the park and another couple of thousand koalas around (the) park, so they are continuing to increase and we know that more than 70% of the trees at Mount Eccles have got less than half of their canopy already," said.
The park is about 190 miles west of Melbourne.
© Associated Press
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