HOW WE CAN SAVE KOALAS
ONE of Australia’s most respected koala experts says Victoria needs a new and wellresourced koala management plan to help the much-loved marsupials thrive amid growing threats from bushfires, habitat loss, disease and other risks.
Ecologist Dr Desley Whisson, from Deakin’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences, said more than 65 per cent of Australia’s koalas live in Victoria and South Australia, making it a critical population to conserve given the impacts of the recent bushfires.
“Because most of Victoria’s koalas live in southwest Victoria, only 5-7 per cent of Victoria’s koalas were affected by the recent bushfires, which were concentrated in East Gippsland,” Dr Whisson said.
“In contrast, about 45 per cent of koalas in northern NSW and 5 per cent of those in southern NSW are estimated to have been lost.”
As an adviser on koala population control programs across Victoria for the past 13 years and having previously led the koala program on Kangaroo Island, Dr Whisson is calling for the creation of a comprehensive and trans
parent management plan in Victoria that provides strategies tailored to specific conditions faced by koalas in different locations.
In a paper published recently in Conservation Science
and Practice, Dr Whisson said southern populations of koalas, in Victoria and South Australia, were becoming increasingly important for the marsupial’s survival, given declining numbers in NSW, the ACT and Queensland.
“The koala’s variable conservation status and management needs across its range creates challenges for policymakers and wildlife managers,” Dr Whisson said.
“In Victoria, issues with overabundance get the most attention. Where this occurs, preferred food trees may become defoliated leading to mass starvation of koalas.
“However, focusing on this problem has tended to take resources away from key issues of low genetic diversity, climate change impacts and habitat loss.”
Dr Whisson said culling is prohibited by national policy and population management is only possible through strategic fertility control, relocations, and ex- xclusion n methods ds such as tree guards or koala-proof oof fences and revegetation.
Koala a overabundance also influences policy decisions.
Dr Whisson said limited resources were allocated to monitor or manage declining populations or to conserve the genetically-diverse population in South Gippsland.
“A comprehensive management strategy for Victorian
koalas must address the diversity of issues that affect koala conservation, and improve our understanding of the ecology of the species,” she said.
A wide understanding of all the issues affecting koala populations were needed for effective conservation.