Koala Concerns

It was 8:15 a.m., breakfast time for Noah Wallace Hessinger on a school day recently, and our little ecologist found himself worrying about the Koala bears. Noah was munching on Organic Koala Crisp, an EnviroKidz Cereal from Nature’s Path Foods Inc., the British Columbia and Washington state based firm specializing in organic cereal, bread, granola bars and other healthy and earth friendly snacks. The back of the cereal box told about the Australian Koala Foundation. According to the group’s website, financial contributions to the organization can help plant trees reclaiming lost habitat for these adorable out back marsupials. The discussion at the breakfast table also touched on concerns about plans to drill for oil in the National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. But when I tried to find a website later on this, Noah was too busy shooting at T-Rex’s from a camouflaged helicopter in his newly downloaded Jurassic Park Operation Genesis game from the Universal Jurassic Park website. So much for ecology. When it comes to conservation, Noah’s views are pretty utilitarian.

“If all the animals were to disappear, where would we get our eggs and chicken and where would we get our meat and milk? Where will we get any meat or things that they give?” Noah said.

I’m not exactly sure how you’d milk a Koala or get eggs from an Alaskan polar bear, but here’s a website on the Alaskan oil drilling issue from the Natural Resources Defense Council and another point of view from the editorial page of the Washington Times.