These scenes elicited much-needed donations from around the world. Considered the world's most-adored wildlife creature, we are fortunate to have them at all.

It is little-known, and little-recognised, about the shameful past, where they were mercilessly shot out of trees to satisfy the burgeoning market for their pelts in the USA. By 1926, the toll was about a million a year, with 600,000 in Queensland alone. That year, US President Herbert Hoover, who earlier spent some years in WA as a mining engineer / manager, placed an embargo on the pelts - effectively stopping the market.

This embarrassed the Australian Government so much, that it immediately placed a protection law for them that we have today.

No doubt, without Hoover's swift action, we would have had none left within a few years.

Their existence is still fragile: with fires, disease, and urbanisation, their future looks bleak. Ironically, it is from another globe-trotting US president, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, who toured Australia in the early 1900's and loved our koalas, that they got the universal tag of 'Teddy Bear'. Quite likely, this may have popularised the Americans' zeal for their fur, and led to the horrific carnage that ensued.

Leaders need to deliver sensible messages to the community in these very difficult times. Kevin Mack indicating the closure of the border was imminent earlier this week was irresponsible and only adding to fear.

The 2REM 107.3FM 40 year birthday celebration has been put on hold due to the coronavirus crisis.

2REM-FM 107.3 community radio's 40th birthday celebrations were due to take place on April 18 at the Commercial Club. A future date will depend on the eradication of this devastating epidemic and the return to normality in the future.

The first official 2REM-FM broadcast took place on Good Friday, April 1, 1980 and was presented by Mr David Orames who also held the position as the stations first technical officer.

The situation with this pandemic is becoming dire and the stress on our health system is incredible with health professionals worked into the ground.

I have several children that are in the health area and one training as a nurse in her third year.

We must add to our health network and there was talk of letting foreign nurses on visas work here. It strikes me that we could also take our student nurses, especially third-year nurses, and put them into local hospitals to ease the strain and assist with the suitable duties.

LaTrobe has numerous trainee nurses who could fill vital assistance roles to doctors and nurses while gaining valuable experience for their training. Why ignore this valuable resource.