No matter how you look at it, the koalas are in trouble. Manna gum leaves, which koalas eat, are in short supply at Cape Otway, a popular tourist destination that's known for its furry inhabitants.

In 2013, the koala population in Cape Otway in southern Australia boomed and chowed through leaves of their preferred manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), killing many of the trees. Even though ...

The koala population there ate all of their preferred eucalypt tree species, the manna gum, until there were no leaves left. Rather than eating leaves from another eucalypt tree, the messmate ...

In some eucalypts these young leaves are more toxic and harder to digest. But young manna gum leaves are just as nutritious as older leaves. So koalas have enough nutritious food until the trees ...

In 2013, their population had grown so large that they had stripped leaves off their preferred ... these into koalas that only ate manna gum. Over the next 18 days, they found that koalas who ...

While some koalas are known to exclusively consume messmate eucalypt leaves, it seemed the manna gum koalas were unable to transition to the different diet. "This led me and colleague Dr Ben Moore ...

However, that perfect existence comes at the cost of the manna gum population, which is being over-browsed to the point of tree death. “Koalas eat up to a kilogram of gum leaves every day ...

The manna-gum-preferring koalas ... or entirely stripping their leaves, as they did in Cape Otway in 2013. The government often steps in in those cases, Blyton says, and relocates the koalas ...