Why Koalas are Horrible

by Lian Kan

A few years ago, as a joke, I asked my Australian friend whether he had a koala in his house. Unsurprisingly, his response was that no, he was not housing a koala, however he did claim that they were ‘horrible creatures’ and were ‘terrifying’. Not believing him, I decided to research into his claim, and on that day I discovered that his claims were, in fact, true.

Koalas are marsupials native to Australia, and honestly, I’m quite glad. Almost 80% of koalas have chlamydia, which often leads to infertility, blindness and death. The poor souls, you say, they didn’t mean to spread sexually transmitted infections to almost the whole of their population; however the reason that so many koalas have been infected is down to a few reasons. Firstly, male koalas are highly competitive, so they often get into fights whenever they are even awake to do so, which leads to open wounds. Secondly STDs are mostly spread through sexual intercourse. To sum it up quickly, female koalas and will pretty much mate with every male koala. Thirdly, koalas are lazy mothers. Joeys feed on the pap - the slightly more nutritious version of feces - of their mothers, which is yet another way to catch chlamydia. Honestly, I’m surprised the percentage of koalas infected isn't higher.

I briefly mentioned before that koalas got violent however there are some truly horrifying videos online of koalas. To ease you into the true nature of these creatures, here are the noises they make:

Now that you are prepared, here are some koalas fighting, which is actually quite eventful considering that they sleep for 20 hours a day:

In fact, fights are so frequent for male koalas that almost all of them have wounds or scratches.

Koalas have had many cases in which they have fought humans. One particular case is the attempted zoo theft in Queensland. Four people broke into the zoo in 2006, meaning to steal a koala to trade for drugs. However, the koala was so vicious and scratched them so much that they changed their plan - and stole a freshwater crocodile. They then proceeded to climb over a 2.4m fence with the 1.2m crocodile and traded it for drugs, and the crocodile has never been found, presumably sold in the pet trade.

And if you are still confused about why I am terrified of these animals, here's a wet koala: