ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 69 



name of 'wombat' to mask the wholesale slaughter. In the Queens- 

 land open season of 1927, approximately 600,000 Koala were mas- 

 sacred by 10,000 licensed trappers." (Troughton, 1932, p. 193.) 



"In Queensland Native Bears are still to be found in fair numbers, 

 and no doubt the Queensland Government was influenced by this 

 fact when it removed the protection which the animals have enjoyed 

 since 1919. But it is certain that even in one month their numbers 

 will be seriously depleted. . . . Fur and skin brokers in Brisbane 

 considered that before the season closed 300,000 skins would have 

 been disposed of. It is doubtful whether this estimated total will 

 have been reached, but it has to be remembered that many young 

 will perish when deprived of the parental care of their mothers, 

 which carry the little ones 'pick-a-back' from June until towards 

 the close of the year." (Anonymous, 1927, p. 112.) 



Stead (1934, pp. 16-17) writes: 



Only in a few places in Queensland are large numbers of the Koala to be 

 found, but only the most careful protection by the Government and by the 

 Australian people will prevent them from being exterminated in these places. 

 . . . Telling of the terrible destruction which has gone on in Queensland . . . 

 makes a very unhappy story, and makes one rather ashamed to think that 

 his own people should so cruelly destroy one of the most fascinating, harmless 

 and most interesting living things in the whole of the world of Nature. . . . 



Very few people have any idea of the immense number of these harmless 

 animals killed in the one State of Queensland in only a few years before the 

 present season of protection was introduced. In 1927, about 600,000 were 

 killed during one month's open season (August), and, for the whole year, 

 including a so-called close season, not less than one million were slain. 

 Altogether, several millions of the poor little Koalas were killed in a space 

 of a few years in Queensland, until a great wave of public indignation put a 

 stop to it for the time being. 



"The tenure of the koala in the Dawson Valley [Queensland] 

 seems to have been a 'waning one for many years, and the last open 

 season reduced it to such an extent that it is now a rare animal in 

 many parts of the valley where it was formerly very plentiful. The 

 process has been hastened, too, in some places, by an epidemic, and 

 on Coomooboolaroo in the summer of 1929 several were seen in 

 comatose condition at the base of feeding trees. The single example 

 in this condition which was examined closely was an aged male, 

 and though emaciated was not heavily infested with endoparasites, 

 nor obviously diseased organically. . . . 



"It was observed .and collected at Thangool on the Cariboe, at 

 Coomooboolaroo, and near Mount Hedlow, on the Fitzroy." (Fin- 

 layson, 1934, p. 220.) 



The animal now has complete legal protection in Queensland 

 (Stead, 1934, p. 18) . 



"Perpetual universal protection is essential to its ultimate sur- 



