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Counting Australia's koalas won't be easy
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AU Edition | 26 November 2020
The Conversation
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Given how intensely Australians and tourists seem to cherish koalas, it’s somewhat baffling their numbers are in such steep decline. If we love these fluffy, dozy marsupials so much, why aren’t we protecting them?
The answer is complicated and has a lot to do with development pressures and serious failings in state and federal environmental laws. But another factor is at play: we don’t know exactly where all the koalas are.
The lack of data has been a gripe of conservationists for years. The federal government has just stepped in with an $18 million conservation package, including $2 million for a national koala audit.
As Romane Cristescu and her colleagues write today, past koala counts have mostly been patchy and unreliable. Koalas are masters of camouflage, and traditional counting techniques – peering into treetops or looking for koala poo – are time-consuming and expensive.
But new ways of finding koalas are changing the game. Detector dogs and heat-seeking drones will help us get a handle on where koalas are – and that’s the critical first step to saving them.
Nicole Hasham
Section Editor: Energy + Environment
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