An environmental group has appealed to the Australian Government to list the country’s iconic koala bears as "endangered" after a new study found that the population of the animals has fallen to a dramatic new low.

According to a study by the Australian Koala Foundation, there could be as few as 43,000 koalas living in the wild – a possible 90 per cent decline over the past 21 years.

The foundation submitted their study today, the biggest national survey of one of the country’s most famous animals, to the federal government’s national Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC). It wants the committee to officially list the species as vulnerable of extinction.

It is the second attempt by the foundation to have the koala listed as endangered after a previous rejection for lack of scientific data. The head of the foundation Deborah Tabart said that this time the group had the statistics to back it up.

Ms Tabart said that the foundation had scoured the bush, surveyed 1,000 forests in 1,800 field sites and measured over 80,000 trees over the past two decades when the koala population was generally considered to be around 400,000.

“The koala habitat is just not there now, the koalas are missing everywhere we look,” she said.

The main causes for the decline include the destruction of their natural habitat due to logging and urban development; disease, such as chlamydia, which affects a large proportion of koalas; dog attacks; bushfires and road accidents.

Most recently, Ms Tabart said, koalas have been found starving to death and dying of dehydration through lack of water due to the drought in Australia. She also added that climate change could be behind their most recent decline.

“The koalas are just dropping out of the trees like flies because there’s no water,” she said. “And a vet told me recently that he had done 700 post mortems on koalas and half of them starved to death, so it is a real problem.”

She said that while there was no way to put a figure on the exact amount of koalas in the wild, the foundation’s current population estimate of between 43,000 and 80,000 would still make it able to be categorised as an endangered species.

“I really believe there is no more than 50,000 koalas left in Australia,” she said. “We drove through western Queensland recently and didn’t see one for three days which traditionally had been full of them.”

In 2003 there were estimated to be 100,000 koalas in mainland Australia. Some scientists believe the numbers may be higher. However, last year the Australian Government endorsed a national conservation strategy for koalas .

Professor Bob Beeton, the chairman of the TSSC, said that the committee was open to discussions over the issue at a meeting in Canberra today, but would not make a decision on the status of the koala until next year.

“We’re interested in whether there’s a decline in numbers, whether there’s a decline in range, how rapidly those things are occurring, what’s the probability of extinction,” Professor Beeton told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, adding that the iconic status of the Australian koala would not influence their decision. “We’d consider the koala with the same level of diligence and dedication as if it were the death adder.”

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