Experts stunned after discovering beloved creatures in backyard of major city: 'Seems to be a bit of a secret'
A first-of-its-kind study of koala populations across hundreds of sites in New South Wales, Australia, revealed a stunning but pleasant surprise: almost 300 living in the backyard of a major city.
The Sugarloaf State Conservation Area lies just west of Newcastle, the second-largest city in New South Wales. The study used thermal drones fitted with spotlights to survey 208 sites across the region. Once the drone picked up a heat spot, it would then close in on the location to confirm the source. According to Phys.org, this made it possible for the Newcastle University researchers to distinguish koalas from other mammals.
"The koala population at Sugarloaf seems to be a bit of a secret even though it's in close proximity to Newcastle," Dr. Ryan Witt, one of the study's authors, said.
The study found 290 koalas foraging in the trees of Sugarloaf, far more than previously believed. Koalas are one of Australia's most distinctive and beloved animals. Despite spending the vast majority of their time snoozing, these charming marsupials are incredibly important to the health of the ecosystem.
In the roughly four to six hours a day they are awake, they consume vast quantities of eucalyptus leaves, equivalent to around 10% of their body weight. Because the leaves are so devoid of nutrition, they don't get around much and tend to stay in the same few home trees. As the International Fund for Animal Welfare notes, koalas are key to sustaining the health of the forests they reside in. This is especially noteworthy as eucalyptus trees are highly efficient carbon sequesters.
Unfortunately, the koala's numbers have dwindled significantly because of habitat loss, droughts, wildfires, and disease. The unexpected discovery of a large number of koalas so close to a major city offers some hope for the future. As the study noted, surveys of wildlife populations tend to be expensive, inaccurate, and time-consuming. However, this new approach provides a more accurate and cost-effective method for tracking wildlife.
The insights gained from this study will help inform more effective conservation strategies in the future, both at the local and national levels. Moreover, the methods can be applied to other wildlife, as the study concludes: "Our approach could be easily applied to arboreal folivores across large-spatial scales to improve baseline abundance estimates over space or to improve our understanding of the impact of disturbance events, such as wildfire."
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