The event was inspired but Judith Turley, a long-term Bungendore Landcarer who saw this koala presentation at the South East Landcare Biodiversity Muster in 2024. Bringing in a terrific trio, the conversation featured Dr Sally Miller, Kirrily Gould and Georgeanna Story, who work in partnership under the current NSW Koala Strategy and broader Cold Country Koalas Project.

With a PhD on koalas, Sally is the Southern Tablelands representative working with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment & Water (DCCEEW). Kirrily is a trained drone pilot with Local Land Services, helping undertake night-time thermal surveys, while Georgeanna is a Landcare Coordinator who also supports field surveys and community engagement, using scats and audio monitoring to detect koala population presence.

In the wild, Koalas are actually quite cryptic and hard to find, often sedentary, high in the canopy and/or rotating around trees to avoid being seen (yes, they do in fact do this!). Researchers like the Cold Country Koalas team therefore rely on a range of techniques, including high-tech field equipment and AI to help find them and map population density. Workshop participants were lucky enough to get up close and see a selection of field equipment on display, including drones, thermal binoculars, and audio-recorders.

Attendees also got the opportunity to sign up to the citizen science program ‘Koala Karaoke’ and participate in field surveys this season. Over 40 audio recorders were distributed on the day, with landholders taking devices home to set up and listen for male koala ‘bellows’ over the next couple of weeks.

The prime time for audio-monitoring techniques is during the koala mating season, which runs from October-February. During the breeding season, the Koala Karaoke Citizen Science program remains open to any interested landholders in the Snowy-Valleys and Queanbeyan-Palerang target area. If you’d like to participate in audio-monitoring on your property, please send in your expression of interest HERE. 

For locals around Bungendore, the event proved a real myth-busting conversation about koalas. One participant noted “I came into this talk with the misconception koalas only eat from one species of Eucalyptus feed tree, and they aren’t found in this region... It turns out there is a smattering of records and sightings in the district, and koalas eat a variety of trees found on my property”.  

Indeed, Sally suggests koalas like munching on a range of local species, particularly scribbly gums (E. rossii), brittle gums (E. mannifera), manna gums (E. viminalis), and sometimes even broad-leaf peppermint (E.dives) and snow gums (E. pauciflora). These species are good canopy species to preserve or prioritize for any revegetation projects with koalas in mind.

While Koala records around Bungendore are still relatively sparse, to the south lies an Area of Regional Koala Significance or ‘ARKS’, home to a unique population of cool-climate koalas in the Upper Murrumbidgee and Monaro region. Recent surveys to the north around Bungonia are also finding koala populations bouncing back after the Black Summer Bushfires and, in the past, anecdotal reports from traditional owners and early settlers of all “the bears” which used to hang around Lake George.

Now an endangered species, if you ever spot a koala in the wild, Kirrily suggests the best thing to do is to record it in the I Spy Koala App. This NSW-based app lets you report sightings of koalas and help protects them by linking the data to BioNet and environmental managers, like the Cold Country Koalas team, to keep up to date about current distributions and inform conservation strategies to monitor and maintain healthy populations.

Overall, the Bungendore Koala Conversation was a bit hit, and Landcare hopes to partner with Sally, Kirrily and Georgeanna again to host another event in Nerriga in the New Year.

Find out more:

• Cold Country Koalas Project: https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/local-land-services/projects/cold-country-koalas-project
• NSW Koala Strategy: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/threatened-species/programs-legislation-and-framework/nsw-koala-strategy
• Koala Karaoke Citizen Science EOI https://regionalnsw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_064xISknJbp3OaW?Q_CHL=qr
• I Spy Koala App: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/threatened-species/programs-legislation-and-framework/nsw-koala-strategy/help-koalas/i-spy-koala

This event was kindly supported by the NSW Koala Strategy, Bungendore Community Landcare, and Upper Shoalhaven Landcare Council under the NSW Landcare Enabling Program, acknowledging the traditional owners and lands bordering both the Ngunawal and Ngarigo peoples where this workshop was held.