The Gold Coast Bulletin

State ignores koala deaths

- CAMPBELL GELLIE

HEARTBROKE­N and tired of picking up dead koalas after removing the broken bodies of 14 in 18 months off a Gold Coast road, Joanne Brierley petitioned for drivers to slow down.

Despite the animal road toll, the petition was rejected by Transport and Roads Minister Mark Bailey because no human life had been lost on Tallebudge­ra Connection Rd.

“(Mr Bailey) totally missed the point. Koalas will be locally extinct in this area if this keeps happening,” she said. “Koalas are struggling with chlamydia and dogs, and others are being run over by cars, but he only places value on human lives, not species in decline.”

Mrs Brierley volunteers for a wildlife organisati­on and when an animal is injured at Tallebudge­ra, she is one of the people called to rescue it.

“It is just awful, it is just horrible, I am glad someone has stopped and tried to get help but it is heartbreak­ing,” she said.

“There are wallabies, bandicoots, echidnas, birds, ducks and possums every couple of days but I am more worried about the local population of koalas.”

Mrs Brierley has been rescuing injured wildlife from the road for the past eight years. She said the problem was getting worse as developmen­t continued in the Currumbin and Tallebudge­ra valleys.

Between the 2011 and 2016 census, the population of Currumbin and Tallebudge­ra valleys increased by 21 per cent, to 7431.

Most of that population would use Tallebudge­ra Connection Rd to reach the M1.

Mrs Brierley’s petition, with about 1000 signatures, asked the State Government to change the speed limit along a 5.5km stretch from 70km/h to 60km/h during the day and 50km/h at night.

The proposed changes would cost motorists 47 seconds in the day and one minute and 53 seconds at night.

But the changes were rejected by Mr Bailey, who said the speed limits needed to be consistent across the state and there were guidelines which determined the limits.

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