Koalas Cute, Cuddly and Kissable, Real Grumps : Marsupials: They have slept their way deep into the Australian psyche and have become symbols for endangered species throughout the world. They are increasingly threatened by development.

The one time I held a koala, I must admit that he had just the kind of effect I’d convinced myself I would resist.

For a moment, Dopey the tame koala became Julia my squeezable 2-year-old. Like her, he seemed soft and vulnerable, a coming together of circles, from ear and head to belly and behind.

Julia melted away when I looked into the koala’s eyes, unresponsive amber beads with vertical slits for pupils. His nose, dramatically Roman, was satiny black. The mouth was equipped with teeth that would give Dracula goose bumps. It curled down at the corners, making for a grouchy look, as if someone had just shaken him out of a deep sleep.

Brief though it was, this encounter satisfied me that the most endearing thing about Australia’s koala is its gentleness.

Wrong. Koalas are more like shrunken grizzlies than teddy bears. Just listen to Keith Hayes, a land surveyor in Queensland. “They’re grumpy little buggers,” he chortled. “If you get a real old grumpy bugger, a big one on the ground, and you’re in his way, he’ll sort of make this horrible growling noise and show his claws. They’ll rip you to pieces.”

Phascolarctos (pouched bear) cinereus (ash-colored): Australian tree-dwelling marsupial; national icon, international heartthrob; nocturnal, odorous, somnolent. Preferred diet: eucalyptus leaves. Range: mainly the coastal forests of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Status: increasingly threatened.

Eastern Australia left me with the strong impression that koaladom is buckling under human success. Convinced too that of all the oddities this continent has brought forth, none is more peculiar or influential--or contradictory--than this pseudo bear. Koalas grown in the wild are sometimes feisty, but in zoos they are downright cute.

Koalas are bearers of very little brain, yet they have been revered for their wisdom. And though they live to sleep, Velcroed to a branch as many as 20 hours a day, koalas galvanize people.

Take Australians. The contrary marsupial is a superstar that radiates in their collective imagination. “The koala,” says Ros Kelly, former environment minister, “is essential to how we see ourselves.”

Koalas have slept their way deep into the Australian psyche. They are an affair of the spirit.

But they’re in trouble. In 1992, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources listed 59 threatened Australian marsupials. Half were judged “endangered” or “vulnerable”; half, including the koala, “potentially vulnerable.”

Recent research has added much to the store of knowledge about koalas, but relatively little is known about the details of their habitat needs.

Many Australians are in despair over what they regard as the unstoppable plundering of nature.

In her campaign to keep a subdivision from being built on the doorstep of a colony of about 70 koalas--the last healthy wild population near metropolitan Sydney--Sue Dobson has had acid thrown on her two dogs, scarring them badly. A homemade bomb was lobbed onto her porch, but it failed to explode. Last year, the New South Wales government acquired the disputed housing site.

There is no doubt that the clearing of forests has caused serious problems for koalas. They are dying out at alarming rates in places. As dwindling colonies become separated by houses, fields, golf courses, shopping centers and the roads that serve them, inbreeding threatens to impoverish the species’ genetic stock. Thus weakened, koalas could be susceptible to devastation by disease.

More than 600 eucalyptus species grow in Australia, but the koalas thrive in only 10 to 15 of them--trees that reach at least 30 feet and have a fairly thick canopy. These do best in the very places where farmers and grazers cleared holdings and pioneer towns sprang up.

The koala slipped through the net of Australia’s Endangered Species Protection Act of 1992, because it is not yet listed as endangered throughout its range. Widespread local extinctions--as in New South Wales, where the koala was put on the endangered list three years ago--are warnings for the species as a whole.

No one knows how many koalas remain. Estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 nationwide. This does not imply that koalas are in imminent danger of extinction. Australians vow they would never let that happen.

If they did, other species would lose a champion. “A whole raft of animals depend upon the koala as a flagship species, as an umbrella species, as a symbol of the bush. And symbolism is extremely important when you’re trying to save something,” said Dan Lunney of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Saving trees is the most pressing business these days for Debbie Tabart, executive director of the Australian Koala Foundation in Brisbane. “It’s fundamental,” she said.

A 1992 government report estimates that every year 200,000 acres of trees are cleared on private lands.

Shrinkage of forest continues apace on farms. Along the stunning coastline, pockets of rich coastal forest hold the largest surviving koala colonies. But in this booming region, the trees are falling fast.

Protecting koalas, Tabart says, requires first establishing the precise limits of their core areas and interconnecting eucalyptus corridors. Only then can governments create enlightened master plans for towns and regions.

Plans, for example, that aim to keep automobiles and koalas apart. Although dogs and dingoes cause some koala deaths, cars are the most lethal predator. Of some 4,000 koalas reported killed every year, 2,500 are struck by cars.