This is funny. I think it is a joke,but I thought I would post it here.

Although I have not heard this before, and it was posted on April Fools Day. What are your thoughts on this, is it real? Here is the link or click link at bottom.

http://citylinkmix.com/more/cuddly-irritating-koala-bears-invade-the-everglades/

Cuddly, irritating koala bears invade the Everglades

Devon Black says it was the worst night of his life. “I didn’t know what was happening,” the Weston resident recalls of that ill-fated February evening in an Everglades National Park campground, large beads of sweating forming on his brow. “It was so dark, and I was so tired. I’d been fishing all day at Flamingo and I just wanted to get some sleep. At about 9:30 p.m., I put out my campfire, opened my tent and crawled inside my sleeping bag. The attack occurred less than an hour later.”

Black says he had just fallen asleep when he felt something soft and furry pressed against his shirtless back and warm, eucalyptus-scented air blowing on his neck. When Black opened his eyes, he saw a tiny, gray arm with sharp, dark nails resting on his bicep. He frantically unzipped the sleeping bag, leaped to his feet and screamed when he saw a small animal looking up at him from the tent floor, its round, gentle eyes terrifying him to no end.

“It was a koala bear!” he now says, shivering at the memory. “The damn thing was trying to spoon me.”

Black is but one of many recent visitors to the Everglades to have encountered South Florida’s latest invasive species, the koala bear, known to wildlife biologists by the fearful scientific name phascolarctos cinereus. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that about 400 koalas are now living in the Everglades, and some officials fear that the annoyingly cute animals are reproducing and moving north, albeit slowly.

“I’ve heard estimates as high as 700 koalas,” says Gabriella Ferraro, spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Commission. “We’ve received reports of koala sightings as far north as Parkland and as far west as Cape Coral. Someone called our office last month claiming to have spotted one in North Miami Beach, but it just turned out to be some old lady’s affenpinscher.”

Ferraro says her office is concerned that the koalas — which have joined the African rock python, Nile monitor and green anaconda on South Florida’s invasive-species list — will do irreparable harm to the Everglades’ fragile ecosystem.

“Well, not to the ecosystem exactly,” Ferraro clarifies, “but to the park’s reputation as the home of fearsome creatures such as crocodiles, anacondas and rattlesnakes. Tourists and campers love the fact that by visiting the Everglades, they run the risk of being eaten alive or being struck by a venomous snake. It’s thrilling. It’s an adventure. The last thing we need is for the Everglades to suffer a surplus of cuteness. So we’re extremely worried that the koalas will keep tourists out of the park, particularly because of the bears’ penchant to sneak up on campers in the middle of the night and cuddle with them, as happened in the case of Mr. Black.”

Since Black first reported his nocturnal encounter with an emotionally needy koala to the commission in early March, other campers have come forward with their own horrifying run-ins with the intimidatingly precious animals, which have a taste for melaleuca bark and a seemingly unquenchable thirst for affection.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” remembers Carla Sommers, who says she woke up inside her RV in the Everglades this past January to discover a koala had wrapped its tiny arms around her body and was snoring soundly. “He was just so cute and looked so darn comfortable sleeping there beside me. No one has hugged me like that in years. I felt awful when I woke up the bear and shooed him out the door with a broom. But what else was I going to do — let him nibble on my ear?”

Searching for a solution to this crisis, the Fish and Wildlife Commission, the South Florida Water Management District and the National Park Service recently hosted a series of town-hall meetings at which officials solicited ideas from worried naturalists, outdoors enthusiasts and preteen girls. Proposals included training beagles to track the koalas; doing nothing and hoping the pythons would take care of the problem (the foolish young man who pitched this idea was assaulted with tears and boos from the girls in the audience); and giving the bears their own reality show on Animal Planet, thereby attracting more tourists to the park. Meanwhile, state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and state Rep. Trudi Williams have co-sponsored a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to import, own or hug a koala in the state of Florida.

For now, though, wildlife officials have decided to allow trappers to hunt, tickle and tag the koalas in order to get a better estimate of their numbers before deciding on further action.

“We need to act fast,” says Ferraro, speaking publicly for the first time about a new fear shared by biologists and cryptozoologists alike that the commission had previously been loath to substantiate. “I assume you’ve heard talk of the superkoala. Well, we now have evidence to believe the threat is real.”

Scientists are worried that should the koalas breed with the much-larger, more-aggressive and less-adorable Florida black bear, a new species of so-called “superkoala” could emerge. The hybrid animal, Ferraro says, would stand five feet tall on its hind legs, run at top speeds of 35 mph and give a whole new meaning to the term bear hug. “It’s almost too terrible to imagine,” Ferraro says. “Should the superkoala come into being, its cuteness would know no bounds and no man, woman or child would be immune to its charms.”

Superkoala or no superkoala, Black says he won’t return to camp in the Everglades anytime soon. “My girlfriend just dumped me, my heart is in tatters and I really don’t think I’m ready to receive affection of any kind,” Ferraro says. “A hug from a koala right now would just about kill me.”

Contact Jake Cline at jcline@citylinkmagazine.com.


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