JIM FAGAN
It’s official. There are only six koalas left in Noosa Shire.
At least, that was the number in May last year when rangers from the State Government’s Koala Conservation Unit, spent a week in Noosa collecting data on the current koala population.
It has taken 11 months of prodding by Noosa Today to get interim results of the survey but on Monday a spokesperson for Government’s Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, reported: “Thirteen bushland and urban sites from Cooloola National Park to Peregian Beach were surveyed, totalling approximately 800 hectares. Six koalas were sighted.”
She said the survey work for Noosa will be completed by the end of this month but results for the whole of the Sunshine Coast won’t be available until December.
The result has shocked koala conservation group, Queensland Koala Crusaders. “Our region has historically been a stronghold for the species, but no more,” said the group’s Carolyn Beaton. “A high point for the Noosa National Park koala population alone was near to 100 in the late 1990s.
“I would like to know the breakdown of the 13 areas. I had expected that DEHP would have found evidence of koalas at Noosa National Park – at both the headland section and at the southern end (at North Peregian).
“If that occurred, it says a lot about the scarcity of koalas in the other 11 areas surveyed.”
She said the Noosa community had engaged in logging local koala sightings “with some gusto” since the Koala Diaries website was launched in early 2010.
“Other similar sites have continued to track koalas since Koala Diaries ceased its mapping project in 2012. We have therefore built up a good picture of koala activity over a significant timeframe.
“This survey work by the Queensland Government will be recognised as baseline data, however, in the absence of any other scientific field assessment.”
Carolyn said this was the first time that independently verifiable, scientifically based information for the region had been presented.
“The timeframe for the completion of this survey project keeps getting extended and the inordinate amount of time it is taking reflects poorly on the decision of the department to dissolve its Koala Conservation Unit late last year.
“If the project was being conducted in private enterprise it would be done within six months. When we’re told the final survey results “should” be ready in six months, that gives me no confidence at all.
“Queensland Koala Crusaders remains committed to the ideal of our region having a sustainable koala population,” she said.
