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“I think many would argue that we are in the middle of an ecological disaster on the island,” he says. “In some areas, the trees are so heavily defoliated that they are dying Koalas are having a devastating effect on the island. “We cull millions of kangaroos in Australia every year and we cull Cape Barren geese, which not long ago were a threatened species,” he says. “As a scientist, I see no reason why koalas should be any different.”Matt Turner, scientific officer of the South Australia Nature Conservation Society, agrees. Foxes and rabbits were never introduced to the island, so it harbours a rich variety of wildlife. Those animals are increasingly threatened as koala numbers continue to spiral and the marsupials munch their way through a limited supply of vegetation.Professor Hugh Possingham, the director of the University of Queensland’s ecology centre and a member of a taskforce that examined the problem, says the government is not acting rationally. It has not followed the example of the neighbouring state of Victoria and put female koalas on the pill.

But some 3,000 males have been surgically sterilised in a costly, laborious exercise that involved climbing trees and bringing them down one by one. After spending more than A$1m (£420,000), officials admitted that they had vastly underestimated the population and had thus been wasting their time. The programme was suspended.Relocation also proved expensive, as well as being stressful for the animals. Scientists and conservationists are now united in their belief that shooting up to 20,000 koalas is the only option if Kangaroo Island’s biodiversity is to be preserved and irreplaceable habitats protected. To us, they’re just pests.”Caught between a rock and a hard place, the government has tried most measures short of a cull.

As a consequence, wildlife that is native to Kangaroo Island is losing its habitats.Grinter, a passionate environmentalist, supports a cull. “Whenever we talk about shooting them, there’s a storm of protest,” he says. “It’s the Bambi syndrome and it’s clouding people’s judgement Visitors get a warm, fuzzy feeling when they see koalas. “Killed by koalas,” says Ken Grinter, a local eco-tourism guide.In the west of the island, the manna gums that used to line the river systems have been all but wiped out. Koalas eat a kilo of leaves a day, and manna leaves are their favourites But they are not fussy. As the mannas die out, they are devouring the leaves of other species of eucalypt, including stringybark and the regionally rare swamp gum.