This article relates to the ongoing debate on Australian Rural & Regional News: Open for Debate: Koalas
Vic Jurskis
Since NSW koalas were declared endangered 12 months ago, they’re turning up everywhere.
Here’s the latest:
“For the past month, a major surveying exercise of the endangered animals has been taking place at 1,000 sites across the state. It’s uncovered a new population of 42 koalas at Coolah Tops, north west of Sydney, when the previous government only had five documented koala sightings in the area over the past 70 years.” (Minns government criticises Coalition’s koala count as new colony found in north west NSW – ABC News, 5 June 2023)
The new government is right to criticise their predecessors. But NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has been manipulating dodgy data from ineffective surveys, mostly done from the office by mail, for 35 years. They’ve run a very successful anti-forestry campaign and land grab, under governments from both sides, that will culminate in the Great Koala National Park under the new government.
No doubt the 35th Anniversary Koala Summit at the end of the year will endorse this achievement and recommend more of the same, perhaps focussing more on private land.
The new Minister says, “all estimates have koalas on track to be extinct by 2050”.
In the Epilogue to the proceedings of the 1988 Koala Summit, Daniel Lunney and Phillip Reed of NPWS wrote “something ought to be done quickly to rescue the koala from its slide into rarity”. During the following three decades, koalas irrupted in many areas. Notably, in logging regrowth on the north coast; at Pilliga-Gunnedah-Liverpool Plains; in the Blue Mountains; on the southern fringe of Sydney; and northeast of Bega.
A few questions for the new Minister:
- Did koalas decline in their north coast ‘stronghold’ through the Black Summer Drought and megafires?
- Which way is it? Are koalas generally declining or are they turning up everywhere when effective surveys are used?
- How many different areas were covered by the 1000 survey sites? How many areas had no koalas?
- If koalas are declining, why would you want to relocate them from areas where they are “problematic” to areas where they are thriving?
The fact is that that there are many more koalas across a wider range than there were before Europeans did any clearing. They are generally increasing from South Australia through to North Queensland. Disease, dog attacks and vehicle injuries are consequences of increasing numbers and dispersing young.
Australian Rural & Regional News has sought Minister Sharpe’s response to the above questions. The Minister’s response will be published here once received.
Many related articles on these issues can be found at Open for Debate: Koalas
Vic Jurskis has written two books published by Connor Court, Firestick Ecology and The Great Koala Scam.
