NEW DELHI, Dec. 20 -- In May, Deborah Tabart, chairman of the Australian Koala Foundation, a non-profit based in Brisbane, issued a press release that said koalas "may be functionally extinct in the entire landscape of Australia". A spate of news reports in November reiterated Tabart's claims. The devastating bushfires in Australia in November saw researchers and wildlife charities fearing hundreds of the marsupials might have perished across Australia-reports suggest the toll could be around 1,000. Visuals of a woman rescuing a wailing koala from the flames in New South Wales went viral.
A species can be declared "functionally extinct" in different situations: if it disappears from the fossil records, if its dwindling population can no lo...