Countryside Koalas: monitoring koalas on private land


Countryside Koalas is a new project that is monitoring the status of koalas in privately owned forests. Until this work, there have been very few formal studies looking at koala occupancy in private native forests. The NSW Department of Primary Industries Forest Science Unit, in partnership with Local Land Services, is monitoring koalas across private native forests in north-east NSW using acoustic surveys. The acoustic survey method relies on recording koala bellows made by the males during the spring breeding season. As of spring 2022, surveys are now in their fourth year.

Project in Action

The survey relies heavily on landholder participation. At present more than 100 properties are part of the project.

Newly developed mini-acoustic recorders, 'Audiomoths', are mailed to participating landholders. These recorders are then set on trees in koala habitat on the property, retrieved after 7-10 days by the landholder and posted back to our ecology team for analysis. The aim is to record male koala bellows that are produced during the spring breeding system.

Previous Work

Countryside Koalas builds on previous work undertaken under the NSW Koala Strategy that used the same acoustic survey method to take a snapshot of koalas across private forests in north-east NSW. Those surveys took place in 2018-2021 and the project has now evolved into the current monitoring program. Published results of that original snapshot survey can be found here.


Audiomoth used to survey for koala bellowing
Distribution of sites used in the original snapshot survey (Law et al. 2022). Triangles: 2018 (red), 2019 (yellow), 2020 (green).

Trends so Far

While we have published results for the 2019 and 2020 surveys, we will soon be collating data from 2021 and 2022 (recordings are being analysed) to describe koala trends over time.

Modelling will account for variations in koala habitat suitability across properties and the dramatic changes in weather that we have experienced over the last few years.

See below for more information on signing up to be part of the Countryside Koalas and contact the Ecology Team of the Forest Science Unit via our project email: koalas@dpi.nsw.gov.au.


Koalas in Private Native Forests - An acoustic study

References

Law B, Kerr I, Gonsalves L, Brassil T, Eichinski P, Truskinger A & Roe P. (2022) 'Mini-acoustic sensors reveal occupancy and threats to koalas Phascolarctos cinereus in private native forests.' Journal of Applied Ecology, 59, 835–846. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14099