Agricultural
18 November, 2024
Farmers caring for the future of our koalas
Farmers continue to play an important role in caring for the future of koalas in the district with the support of Pittsworth and Millmerran Landcare Associations. On Saturday, Koalas Out West hosted a number of guest speakers, providing information to landholders about revegetation, koala health, and the Toowoomba Region Koala Habitat project.
Koalas have been a large focus of the Pittsworth and Millmerran Landcare Associations for many years.
Pittsworth has distributed more than 10,000 trees to 150 landholders in the past seven years to combat the largest threat to our koalas: habitat loss.
Dr Rosie Booth said other threats are all a consequence of the loss of habitat or habitat fragmentation.
“Approximately 30 per cent of hospital admissions are from koalas being hit by cars, approximately 40 per cent are affected by chlamydia, and 10 per cent are from domestic dog attacks.”
She said climate change is also the overarching issue that is becoming more of a concern.
Dr Booth is an associate professor at the University of Southern Queensland and undertakes health assessments on wild koalas.
“We do a range of diagnostic tests looking for diseases and any other issues they might have.”
The most important part of the assessment is the PCR swabs looking for chlamydia.
“The prevalence of chlamydia has a major affect on the health of the population,” Dr Booth said.
“Out here in Pittsworth approximately 30 per cent of koalas have evidence of chlamydiosis, and we’ve seen four females that are permanently infertile as a consequence.”
Other guest speakers on the day included landholder Ashley Wood, who spoke about revegetation on his property, and Chris Meibush who talked about the Toowoomba Region Koala Habitat project.
Lana Bradshaw of Pittsworth Landcare encouraged landholders to register any koala sightings.
A number of apps were suggested for this, including iNaturalist, QWildlife and Koala Spotter.
“I do want to stress that every sighting is actually important,” Ms Bradshaw said.
A big focus of Pittsworth Landcare, particularly over the last 12 months, has been in scat collections.
The group collected over 100 samples with OWAD, a private environmental consultant company in Brisbane, and 82 of those samples brought forth a unique DNA profile.
“We had a really good success rate,” Ms Bradshaw said.
“We did collect those samples from all over the Toowoomba Region.
“All of those samples have now been run through for genetics testing.
“It seems our koalas are actually quite healthy.
“One of the interesting things was that our koalas all tested negative for KoRV [koala retrovirus], which is a nasty one,” she said.
KoRV is likely to play a key role in the high incidence of neoplasia in koalas.
Full data from this project is to be published by the end of the year.
Children in attendance on the day, spent time in the craft room and watching the animals from Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation.
