Transcript

SABRA LANE, PRESENTER: In some parts of Australia, koala populations have grown out of control. You might have seen reports recently of a controversial mass culling in Victoria along the Great Ocean Road. In other parts, koalas are endangered by a whole range of threats, from habitat clearing and wild dog attacks to road accidents and disease. In south-east Queensland, a groundbreaking study is tracking individual koalas to see how they're faring. Peter McCutcheon has the story.

This is really the largest and most intensive koala-monitoring project ever done. To monitor those koalas, we have to send field teams out with a directional antenna and they track the koala down and check it out with binoculars and make sure it's OK.

PETER MCCUTCHEON, REPORTER: On the fringe of Brisbane's northern suburbs, researchers are gaining new insights into a threatened species.

SEAN FITZGIBBON, KOALA ECOLOGIST, UNI. OF QLD: Up here in Queensland and New South Wales, we've got koalas that are declining rapidly, population's dropping off the face of the Earth right on our doorstep and we're not able to do anything about it, seemingly.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: This strip of bushland is home to hundreds of koalas on the edge of a new rail development and researchers are trying to keep the marsupials out of harm's way.

JOHN HANGER, KOALA VETERINARIAN: All of the things that are impacting koalas and what are the things that we can help to address, even though they've got nothing to do with the rail construction or the operation of the rail line, what are the things that we can do to make life better for those koalas and make their population sustainable into the long term?

PETER MCCUTCHEON: The Moreton Bay Rail Link koala monitoring and management program is headed by veterinarian Dr John Hanger, who makes sure the hundreds of koalas around the proposed construction site are examined every six months.

SEAN FITZGIBBON: It's really the most thorough ecological study of koalas that I'm aware of that's happened in Australia and the other great thing about it is that they're using really cutting-edge technology to be able to monitor those koalas, large numbers of them, so that the koalas, they know what they're up to every few days.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: That cutting-edge technology includes fitting electronic collars to koalas so they can be tracked in real time. More than 400 koalas have so far been tracked over the past two years and the results have been both surprising and deeply disturbing.

JOHN HANGER: We had no idea that the wild dogs were such a significant impact on the koala population.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: It's nearly a third of the population taken by wild dogs.

JOHN HANGER: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: 130 tracked koalas were later found dead, mostly through wild dog attacks. And many joeys, like this one, were orphaned.

It doesn't take hordes of dogs to create all this carnage.

JOHN HANGER: It seems that one dog can have a disproportionately large impact, if it develops a taste, so to speak, for koalas.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Do you think it could be one dog?

JOHN HANGER: No, certainly not one dog on this project, but there is one particular dog on this project who has, we suspect, killed a disproportionately large number of animals.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Because of the research findings, the local council has employed two dedicated dog catchers and they've since removed more than 20 dogs from the area.

ANIKA LEHMANN, MORETON BAY KOALA RESCUE SERVICE: It reduces me to tears. The number that are killed by wild dogs, it's just beyond belief.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: The local koala rescue service would prefer no development through the area, but welcomes the conservation efforts of the rail project, funded by the Queensland and Federal governments.

ANIKA LEHMANN: I think the project goes beyond and above what they should do. They really, really do the right thing and I know Dr John and his team, they have the heart on the right place.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: In other parts of south-east Queensland, the bar for protecting koalas isn't as high.

Julia Rose and Adelia Berridge organised a petition of more than 30,000 signatures to save the 20 or so koala trees on an old vegetable farm at Ormiston, east of Brisbane. But the trees all came down on the Monday after the Queensland election.

ADELIA BERRIDGE, KOALA PROTESTOR: One of the items in the report that we got from council was that it would be unreasonable to ask the developer or expect the developer to surrender 2,000 square metres. Why? Why is it unreasonable?

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Unlike the Moreton Bay Rail Project, there's no dedicated scientific program to help those koalas affected by the clearing of this bush corridor, only a requirement to plant trees elsewhere as an offset.

KAREN WILLIAMS, MAYOR, REDLAND CITY COUNCIL: The legal advice told us there were no planning grounds for us to protect those trees.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: So is the law wrong? Should the law be changed?

KAREN WILLIAMS: I actually think there is room for review and I'd like to work with the community of Redland and other committed people.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Karen Williams is the Mayor of Redland City Council, who describes herself as "pro-jobs".

Is there a sense of frustration here that the koala can sometimes be an obstacle to development, an obstacle to job creation?

KAREN WILLIAMS: Well, look, there's no doubt there's frustration when you're trying to walk that fine line, get the balance between jobs, between growth and maintaining your natural environment. I certainly believe that people in Redland understand the value of the koala.

JOHN HANGER: I guess I always worry when I hear the word balance because we taketh away and we don't give back an awful lot, do you know what I mean?

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Although John Hanger is working on a development that he believes is saving the lives of koalas, he admits that there's a limit to how far he can go.

JOHN HANGER: At the end of the day, we are still putting a major piece of infrastructure through remnant koala habitat, and at some point, that way of thinking has to end.

SABRA LANE: Peter McCutcheon reporting.