Koala dominant. Older males usually have accumulated scratches, scars, and cuts on the exposed parts of their noses and on their eyelids. The koala's gestation period lasts 33–35 days, and a female gives birth to a single joey (although twins occur on occasion). As with all marsupials, the young are born while at the embryonic stage, weighing only . However, they have relatively well-developed lips, forelimbs, and shoulders, as well as functioning respiratory, digestive, and urinary systems. The joey crawls into its mother's pouch to continue the rest of its development. Unlike most other marsupials, the koala does not clean her
Koala to control their numbers by culling, but public and international outcry has forced the use of translocation and sterilisation, instead. One of the biggest anthropogenic threats to the koala is habitat destruction and fragmentation. In coastal areas, the main cause of this is urbanisation, while in rural areas, habitat is cleared for agriculture. Native forest trees are also taken down to be made into wood products. In 2000, Australia ranked fifth in the world by deforestation rates, having cleared . The distribution of the koala has shrunk by more than 50% since European arrival, largely due to fragmentation of habitat