Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Saving the Koala in SEQ

Yesterday, I attended a presentation on the development of a Koala Conservation Plan for Queensland. The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) have recently been successful in getting the Koala listed as ‘vulnerable’ in SEQ. This classification ensures the state is now obliged to draw up plans for its protection and recovery.

Koalas –given their almost unrivalled status as the most cuddly Australian icon - have had a turbulent history since the arrival of white settlers to SEQ.

Lamington National Park lies on the border of Queensland and NSW and is the jewel in the crown of QPWS in SEQ. Its rainforest and open eucalypt forest slopes include much of the MacPherson Range, an ancient caldera volcano. It was first gazetted as a National Park in 1915 after long and hard lobbying by early nature preservation groups.

It was named after a former Governor of Queensland, Baron Lamington (full title: Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baille)(governor 1896 to 1901), who visited the park just once, in 1897, to shoot koalas.

From his memoirs, his abiding recollection of the trip, was the dying cries of koalas as they fell to the ground.

It might surprise you to learn, but koalas are no longer hunted.

However, back in Lord Lamington’s days, it sounds like it was quite the gentlemanly sport, with ample allowance made for those dapper colonial types who normally struggled to shoot anything that moved quicker than…..well….a koala.

‘The Chase’ would hardly set the pulse racing. It seems that all you need do was stand at the base of a tree, leisurely fire off as much shot as you like and then wait until the dam thing fell to the ground. You would then turn to appreciate the sycophantic applause of your menagerie and break for a fine lunch.

Koalas don’t exactly scatter like rabbits.

When the Queensland government rescinded its protection of koalas in 1927 (in attempt to draw the unemployed masses out of the shanties of Brisbane, in the Great Depression), in the first month of open season, 584,000 koalas were killed for their fur.

Now the entire population of koalas in Queensland is estimated to be less than 300,000. Yet still the human and the koala populations are on collision course. The densest koala population happens to overlap with the fastest growing human population in Australia: SEQ.

The main cause of death for koalas is not now the huntsman’s gun, but habitat loss, roadkill and domestic dogs. The Koala Conservation Plan aims to mitigate the impact of these killers. How successful it is depends on how much it impinges on human growth and profit. This is undoubtedly a zero-sum game.

Despite the SEQ Regional Plan demanding higher densities, clearing native bushland for housing development is to continue for some years yet. This is the biggest killer. Being pushed off the land causes koalas stress then disease and female fertility quickly collapses. Translocation of whole populations has also been shown to be ineffective. Hitherto, land clearing has been completed with a scorched earth policy and has not provided for bushland corridors, isolating populations from one another and reducing genetic diversity, making koalas less resistant to introduced animal diseases.

The Conservation Plan will use Council planning schemes to enforce phased clearing of bushland, mandate masterplanned contiguous green space corridors and force developers to create wildlife tunnels underneath major roads. The Regional Plan has also protected much of the ‘Koala Coast’ in Redland Shire (to the SE of Brisbane) and the rural areas in Brisbane hinterland from ‘urban’ development.

Dogs are a big killer too. Of the 1,000 koalas that are admitted each year to sanctuaries for treatment, 12% are a result of dog attacks and 80% do not survive. On top of this an unknown number of koalas are killed and not reported or discovered. Most dogs roam free in backyards and are unrestrained and unmuzzled, even at night.

A big part of the Conservation Plan will focus on domestic animal management and will (hopefully) attempt to phase out the ownership of large dogs (the main threat) in the important areas. Some successful ‘Koala friendly’ developments have even required statutory covenants restricting the ownership of dogs on large estates.

The speaker from QPWS was at pains to say that ‘education does not work’. Despite many thousands of dollars being spent on encouraging people to develop koala-friendly backyards, to think twice about dog-ownership and to force planning conditions on developments, developers driven by profits and owners simply not caring, mean that legislation and regulation, to everyone’s cost, is now necessary to protect the koala.

The growth in population in SEQ will undoubtedly further impact on koala numbers. With such fickle breeding patterns and stubborn social attitudes (they are notoriously single minded when on the move) the koala population in SEQ is seriously threatened. Numbers can very quickly collapse and it is still unknown where that threshold lies. A Conservation Plan watered down by vested interest from developers and bloody-minded residents will not save the Koala in SEQ.

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