Finally.... a management program for koalas at Cape Otway

This week, the Department for Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) began assessing health of koalas at Cape Otway as the first part of a long-term management program for koalas and manna gum woodlands at the Cape.

This is an extremely positive action to inform management actions that are likely to include fertility control and translocation. Such management is necessary if we are to avoid a repeat of late 2013 when thousands of koalas died of starvation.

However, the media appears to be intent on stirring up the public with headlines like 'Killing to resume at Cape Otway koala colony' (The Australian), and 'Koala cull on the cards' (Sky News Australia). I spoke with a few of the reporters and advised them on the consequences for koala welfare if health is not monitored. Obviously those stories don't sell papers and reporters/editors don't mind if their poor reporting results in animal suffering.

I respect Victoria's Minister for Environment (Hon Lisa Neville) for listening to scientific advice and requesting the development of a long-term management strategy for this issue.

If you would like to hear more about koala management at Cape Otway, you can check out DELWPs facebook post or see them on twitter;

DELWP discuss this management action (Facebook)

DELWP on twitter about Cape Otway koalas

Getting the facts right

The misinformation in the media over the last few days has been frustrating to read. I am writing this blog to set the record straight, clarify the need for the actions of late 2013 and early 2014, and answer a few questions about koala management.
 
Around 75 koalas were relocated from French Island to Cape Otway in the early 1980s. Most of these probably survived because they were hand-picked healthy individuals that were relocated from manna gum woodland to manna gum woodland. In addition to being similar habitat, the Cape Otway manna gum did not have a resident koala population. These are important points to remember!

In manna gum woodlands, koalas become manna gum specialists and their behaviour is different to what is seen elsewhere. Their ranges are small (less than 1/2 hectare), they tolerate other koalas in close proximity, fecundity is almost 100%, and joeys survive to become breeders themselves. This results in population growth and densities that are seen nowhere else. In addition, in places where fire is suppressed (human intervention) there are no natural regulators of population growth.

These koalas seem to tolerate other koalas in close proximity

This koala (joey on belly) struggles to find enough food

In 2008, there were about 450 hectares of manna gum at Cape Otway adjacent to the vast blue gum/grey gum/mountain ash forests of the Great Otway National Park. By September 2013, there were around 200 hectares of manna gum left. Koalas had defoliated and killed trees to the south and numbers had increased in the north due to koala movement from the south and breeding. Trees began to die but most koalas showed no sign of moving. Female koalas abandoned their joeys and all koalas started eating bark, grass and sometimes dirt. 

On a personal note, I dreaded my weekly visits to Cape Otway because each week I would have to pick up yet another carcass of one (sometimes several) of my study animals. The day I picked up 4 and took another emaciated one to a carer to have euthanased was my lowest. I have not seen anything like it in 25 plus years of working in wildlife management. 

There was a smell of rotting koala in the air. Landholders were suffering extreme stress watching both koalas and trees die. 15 of 20 of my radiocollared animals died, most of those before the government finally stepped in and started putting animals out of their misery. 

I applaud the government for making the difficult decision, especially knowing that there could be significant negative media. Had the media of this week happened back then, 686 koalas would have still died, but their suffering would have been for much longer. I felt incredibly sorry for the team that had the difficult task.

It was not a cull. It was euthanasia of irreversibly sick animals. Healthy animals were released, females given a hormone implant. 

It was not done secretly. It was done in a very public place and hundreds, if not thousands of people were there to witness it. Landholders knew. Prior to the euthanasia, I had tried contacting the media. The few times when my call/email was actually returned, it usually was to say something like "we don't want to get in the way of what needs to be done".

Perhaps if the government had taken action sooner we may have avoided having to take such drastic but necessary action. But in 2013 it was too late for hindsight: the problem was there and needed to be addressed. 

This animal was too weak to climb.
I found some leaves for him

So what are the options for dealing with overabundant koalas at Cape Otway? The following are the only ones that are permitted:

1. Relocation to other forests or zoos? In 2008 there would have been between around 4000 koalas in manna gum. In 2013 there were likely more. These koalas are manna gum specialists and there are studies that show that between 90 and 100% of koalas relocated from manna gum to other forest types die. There is no manna gum left in Victoria that doesn't already have a large number of koalas so there is no manna gum to relocate koalas to. Zoos are not interested in taking adult koalas. Adult koalas straight from the wild are difficult to handle and feed and are stressed around people. Zoos only want joeys or young subadults that they can hand-raise and habituate to people.

2. Fertility control? Very expensive and may only have low effectiveness. However, at this point it really is the only option to stop koalas increasing in number again. It may be more effective than first thought. Results from some of my tracking work suggests that high site fidelity means that there is little movement of koalas within some areas. The government would need to commit to a long-term plan though to address issues of koalas moving in from the neighbouring forests of the Great Otway National Park.

3. Plant more trees? The landholders have been doing this for years and have plans to continue.

4. Let 'nature take its course'? Loss of the manna gum ecosystem may be the final outcome despite all our efforts. Personally, I would like to do whatever possible to avoid that. I hope you agree!

Taking a breather

Today, koalas are in the media and I've been forced to take a breather from writing lectures for interviews with radio, newspaper and TV. So what is all the fuss about? After more than a year since the koala population crash and government welfare interventions of late 2013 and February 2014, the media has decided that it is a story worth reporting. It's not often that the media is that slow is it?

My day started at 6am when the bellowing of koala 'Dave' woke me. For those of you who don't know, Dave is my ringtone on my mobile. It is not pleasant to be woken by a koala bellowing in your ear! The caller was 3AW radio wanting to talk about the 'secret cull of koalas at Cape Otway'. Apparently 'The Australian' newspaper had written an article titled that and discussing the government's program to euthanase starving koalas in 2013/14. I suppose government conspiracies and cover-ups get people's attention because I have since spent my day in interviews and taking phone calls to set up interviews.

My only hope is that this media interest will result in a positive outcome for long-term management of koalas and their habitats at Cape Otway. The problem has not gone away and our November and February counts suggest that koala numbers are beginning to increase again in areas where manna gum survived the 2013 events. Without management, there will be another population crash. I definitely do not want to witness something like that again.

Here is the opening of The Australian article that triggered chaos today:

"ALMOST 700 koalas have been secretly killed by lethal injection near Victoria’s Great Ocean Road and thousands more are in danger of starvation due to an ongoing crisis caused by overpopulation in one of the nation’s key habitats. The Australian can ­reveal that wildlife officials conducted three euthanasia operations in 2013 and 2014 to kill 686 koalas, in what was a covert campaign to avoid any backlash from green groups and the community."

Despite the title and opening sentences, they at least got some of the story right:

"Deakin University koala expert Desley Whisson was part of the team that dealt with the problem a year ago and warned that the problem would continue. Dr Whisson said the density of koalas on the cape was potentially the greatest in Australia and that some of the ­animals were in such poor health that euthanasia was the only ­option.

“It was a blessing when the vets came,’’ she said. As well as invading the Bimbi Park campground, the koalas stripped stands of manna gums, virtually wiping out the trees and making it difficult for the 8000-strong group to find food. Only the fittest specimens were able to survive, leaving the oldest and, in some cases, smallest koalas to starve. Dr Whisson said the reduction in numbers had nothing to do with thinning out the population and was all about dealing humanely with sick koalas."

Koala love

I’m often asked questions about koala reproduction and considering that we are now entering the peak of the koala breeding season (at Cape Otway at least), I thought I’d put together a summary of what we know about koala ‘love’. Actually, there is not that much ‘love’ involved and for anyone who had witnessed a male koala that is full of testosterone, harassing a female koala that is not interested in him, you’d know what I’m talking about. The female will scream her disinterest and if the male gets too close, she will fight him off with tooth and claw. Eventually, he will retreat, often bellowing (in frustration?). Ten minutes or so later, he will try again. Observations suggest that he will continue to stay close to his chosen female, sitting in a lower fork of the tree and guarding her closely.

A male trying desperately to get some 'love'. He managed to grab the female but eventually
lost his grip and fell about 5m.

 

He  simply climbed back up the tree to await another opportunity

This male took an interest in me. I'd had the misfortune of being urinated on by a female that we were catching. Considering his obvious 'excitement', I think he may have thought I was a female koala.

 

I have only ever seen a few copulations in the wild. In one, the female went to the male (she actually woke him up). In another, the male went straight to the female, passing another female on the same branch. Obviously, given the number of joeys we see, there are a lot of successful copulations. Around 80% of the females in our Cape Otway population this year have joeys. This means that even the food shortage last year did not disrupt the breeding cycle.

The koala gestation period is around 33 to 35 days. The young is born at the embryonic stage (as with all marsupials) and crawls its way to the pouch. Typically there is only one young although twins can occur. In wild populations, it is likely that only one of these will survive through to independence.

Twins for a female at Cape Otway (photo courtesy of DEPI)

The young latches on to one of two teats and will remain in the pouch for about 6 months. The mother prepares her joey for its eucalyptus leaf diet by producing a faecal pap for the joey to feed on. This helps the joey transition from a milk- to a leaf-diet. At 6 to 7 months of age, the joey (300 – 500g) emerges from the pouch and clings tightly to the mother. It will begin eating leaves although continues to poke its head back into the pouch for milk.

After leaving the mother's pouch, a joey will regularly poke its head back in the pouch for a drink.

 

The mother will carry the joey on its back for around 3 months.

 

By 9 months, the joey will weigh around 1kg, and at 12 months and ~2.5kg it is fully weaned. Weaning usually occurs when the mother becomes pregnant again. The mother will become quite aggressive towards her young. This can be heartbreaking to watch – the mother screaming and lashing out at her young, and the young crying. It is not uncommon to see a few of these rejected young hanging out together. On one of my Earthwatch trips, a recently weaned joey even sought comfort from one of the Earthwatchers. It literally chased her and began climbing her leg.

This joey is nearing independence.

There are still a lot of questions about how koalas select their mates and how long males will guard females. I am hoping that we will get some answers to these questions this breeding season. We have deployed ‘proximity collars’ on males and females in the same area. When koalas wearing these collars are within a few metres of each other, each collar will record the ID of the other collar, the time, and the duration of interactions.

What's in a name?

Some say that it is not good scientific practice to name your study animals. Obviously I disagree. I think a name is easier to remember than a number and allows us all to engage more with the research. Besides, Jane Goodall named her chimpanzees so why can’t I name my koalas?

Since 2010, about 50 Cape Otway koalas have been named. I have generally allowed those helping me catch to choose a name but ‘try’ to claim the power of veto. I say ‘try’ because sometimes a name is slipped in without me getting a chance to veto, or I am simply out-voted. Here's just a few that had reasons behind their names...

Princess – captured by an Earthwatch team on the day of the royal wedding. I thought ‘Kate’ would be fitting but I was ignored. 'Princess' lived up to her name though. Such a drama queen in a catch!

Lucie – named for my lovely French volunteer. She had the same sweet personality (See the photo at the top of the blog).

Dave – you just have to love a koala called ‘Dave’. Dave is definitely my favourite.

Kevin – the eleventh koala ever collared... "Kevin Eleven"

Bruce – big, grumbly and slow-moving. Bruuuuuuuccce.....

Bruce

Tony Parker – a French basketballer. Apparently this koala moved just like him? Named by a French volunteer.

Erik – after the Viking (Erik the Red) who was shipwrecked at Cape Otway.

Erik

Mac – moved as fast as a Mac truck.

Frankie – named for Frank from Bimbi Park. We messed up on matching personalities here though. Koala 'Frank' was plain nasty and earnt him the nickname 'Cranky Frankie'.

Beast – quite scary and ‘beast’-like and named by a visiting researcher. We estimate him to be about 12 y.o. so he's my oldest boy.

Beast

Scarface – pretty obvious really. In 2010 I came across him. He had a terribly infected face wound (not sure what caused it) and I didn't think he'd live. A year later, I saw him with a healed but scarred face so decided to collar him. He still lives on.... a resilient fellow.

Scarface

Emily, Charly, Georgie, and Benjamin were joeys named for my three nieces and nephew. Some of the few named by me and obviously the cutest joeys ever.

And from our latest trip, we have Diamond named as a thank you to Mitsubishi, Fran named for San Francisco zoo, and Sarah and Tigger both named by Earthwatchers for their own personal reasons. Next week I will be heading back to the Cape to add another 16 koalas to the list. Any suggestions for names?

Cut..... Take 137... Rolling....

I was fortunate to be able to join the September Earthwatch team for a few days of their trip. 'Fortunate' in that I loved spending time with yet another group of enthusiastic people who share my passion for the environment. The unfortunate part was that it was only for a few days AND involved a lot of time spent in front of a camera, often having to repeat the same tasks and conversations multiple times. One of the holes I dug while planting trees nearly took me to China it was so deep by the time the film crew got their perfect shot. I know the promotion of the project will make it all worthwhile though. Mitsubishi has generously provided funding to Earthwatch to make a documentary of the 'Conserving Koala Country' Earthwatch trip.
 
Despite all that was happening, I did get a chance to find our old collared friends. Bella is looking good and appears to have decided to settle in her new area over the hill. Buffy also hasn't moved much since February. Sally is back in her original range and has a tiny pouch young. I only caught a glimpse of a leg poking out of her pouch. No wonder she left Sammy behind in March... she needed to prepare for a new joey. I found Dave sitting in a tree near the driveway of Pat and Cyril's and he bellowed a greeting.

I took the film crew to meet him so that they could film him bellow but Dave turned camera shy and just scowled at us. Interestingly, Scarface was sitting in the neighbouring tree to Dave. I was happy to see him because he dropped his collar months ago so I haven't seen him for a while.

Dave goes camera shy

Scarface still hanging around

True to form, Beast was trying to romance a female. Judging by her screams, she wasn't interested but I'm guessing he will wait until she is. He's pretty persistent. We caught both Beast and the female (now named 'Tigger') and put proximity collars on them. These will tell us when they finally do get together and then when they break up. That's koala love for you... not long term! Each collar has a unique code and when within a few metres of each other, they each record the other code and the time spent near it. Cool stuff!  We also caught and collared a new male named 'Diamond' by Earthwatchers Craig and Robyn. The diamond is part of Mitsubishi's logo so we thought that this name was a nice way to thank Mitsubishi for their sponsorship.

On my last day, we found a female (with a large joey) in the same area as Beast and his as-yet-unwilling girlfriend, so I decided to try to catch her too for fitting a proximity collar. When I finally got myself into a good position to catch (2 anchor points up!), this female decided that she didn't like the idea of being caught and moved just out of reach. Anybody who has ever climbed to catch koalas would understand how I felt at this point. I came pretty close to calling it off... but... it was a perfect koala for the study, the last opportunity to catch on this trip, and ultimately, I am stubborn and hate being out-smarted by a koala. So, I took a deep breath, muttered a few choice words that I hope the film crew didn't hear and record, and anchored a third point in the tree. This time, I managed to get the koala into the neighbouring tree where my able Earthwatchers (Jenna and Tori) could flag her. I was back down the tree in a lot less time than it took me to get up and soon our little mum and joey were snug in holding bags. I am sure that Jenna and Tori were pleased that I didn't call the catch off because they got to mind the little joey (a girl - named Sarah by Jenna) while I processed the mum (named 'Fran' as an acknowledgement for the San Francisco Zoo who sponsored Jenna's trip). Fran and Sarah were soon reunited and released and were climbing their way back up the tree (much quicker than I climbed it!).
 
Today, I am back in Melbourne and feeling a bit creaky, sore and tired. Despite that, I have no regrets. It was such a pleasure to work alongside such amazing people, and as always, a privilege to have the opportunity to study these beautiful animals. I take back what I said yesterday and instead say "I will never be too old to do this".

Thanks to the Earthwatch crew (Kento, Shirley, Robyn, Craig, Jenna, Tori), Alistair (co-PI) and Cass (Earthwatch Australia) for letting me join you, and my Bimbi Park family for everything you do for me (Dimitri - I wish you a speedy recovery). I also would like to thank the film crew (Sharon, Andrew, Brent, Max, Jess, Clint and Amy) for your patience. If there's ever a next time though, makeup, hairstyling, my own motorhome and a massage or two would be appreciated :-) Oh, and I'm going to add a fee for joeys...

Happy days ahead

This field season promises to be an exciting one with the recovery of manna gums in our main site to document, lots of sites to survey for koalas, and some short-term studies of koala breeding behaviour. Our first Earthwatch trip is only a week away with more trips planned for November and February. Earthwatch has arranged for a documentary to be made of our research so the September Earthwatchers can look forward to being film stars!

I last visited Cape Otway two weeks ago and was very happy to see trees continuing to recover. There are fewer koalas than in previous years but this is a good thing because those that are present are healthy. Our collared koalas that survived the population crash are looking good. Buffy has settled in the south of the manna gum site near Bimbi Park, and Beast and Sally are back within their old ranges. Dave has settled a bit further to the north and Bella a few km to the north of him again. Scarface dropped his collar months ago but the locals occasionally see him.

Happy days!



Fewer koalas in Manna Gum means that those that are there are healthy