Are Australia’s koalas going extinct? We asked an ecologist.

This fire season has been one of the worst on record in Australia. One billion animals are estimated to have died — among them, the iconic koala. Slow-moving and dependent on the forest, koalas have been especially hard hit with thousands dead in New South Wales alone. Koalas were already threatened before the Australia fires broke out. Decades of human activity has whittled their population down dramatically. But after this year’s fire season, experts believe koalas are now in danger of becoming extinct