RIP Kevin

Kevin - in better times

I have been meaning to post this for some time.  In mid-January I was sad to find the remains of Kevin.  I had not predicted his death. We attempted to catch him in December for a health check but he simply glared at me from his distant perch (barely within my reach) in a dead limb and refused to be persuaded down.  He always seemed to be in the thick of any action at the site so I’m guessing he simply wore himself out.  I will miss you my grumpy, stubborn friend.

The exciting news though is that In January, Ruby had a jellybean joey in her pouch.  By its size, I reckon it might just be Kevin’s.

Wally is also still with us.  He is now in a tree near the gate from the paddock into the site.  As much as I would like to get the accelerometer and GPS off his collar, we won't be catching him until he's in a much improved state.

'Beast' to be a movie star

On the 18th December, Cass, Vic and I headed back down to Cape Otway for some catching and to meet with a film crew from ABC Catalyst.  The crew had been on the road since early November, travelling from Perth to Melbourne to collect as much material as they could for episodes to be aired in early 2013 (see http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3642016.htm).  They wanted to do a story on the overpopulation of koalas at Cape Otway, landholder views, and our research studying the issue.

I think we were all a bit nervous about being in front of the camera, and the fact that they wanted to film us catching a koala didn't help.  As some of you know, koalas aren't always the easiest animals to deal with and I've never been able to predict an 'easy' catch.  At first, I think the reporters wanted to be my catching team but thankfully, I was able to talk them out of that. So, just prior to their arrival, Cass, Vic and I searched for a koala that might be 'easy' to catch.  We really wanted a female to add to our sample of collared koalas.  We found a female with a joey in an isolated tree out in the paddock.  'Beast' was in the same tree and quite low, but given his size and usual mean temper, we decided to leave him alone. 

The crew were happy with our choice of filming location and koala 'talent'.  They loved 'Beast' with his grumpy look and battle-worn face and took loads of footage of him.  As for the catch.... our little mum and joey behaved beautifully. The only thing that would have made the catch more perfect was if they'd walked into the catching bag themselves.  The mum put up a fight once in the bag though which made the noose tricky to remove.  I ended up having to restrain her on the ground to get it off.  The mum was tiny although big enough to collar.  The joey was only about 700g so provided the 'cute' factor.

The crew was a bit disappointed that we wanted to work fast so as to reunite mum and joey, and release them quickly.  But, they were excited with the turning on of a collar (about 5 retakes of that) - there's something exciting about a machine that goes 'bing'; and happy to take footage of us looking into a catch bag and pretending it contained a koala.  After multiple retakes of us watching the koalas back in the tree, and some goofy comments about koala behaviour, rain forced us back to Bimbi Park.  I then was interviewed with my laptop opened so I could look 'scientific'. 

It was a looooooonnng day and we didn't get back to Melbourne until about 10pm.  My fingers are crossed that it comes out OK.  It will air sometime in March.  I'll post a blog when I have the exact details.

Bruce

Bruce

~2003 to December 2012

 

 

Bruce was definitely a favourite and I will miss him.  I'm sure his genes will live on in the Otway koala population though. I'm glad you had such a long life Bruce. RIP.

A legendary effort by legendary people

It is an extreme understatement to say that the November team worked hard.  Our achievements include:

·         Koala census completed at 9 sites (including Aire R)

·         160 randomly selected trees in 8 sites assessed for condition

·         21 new trees tagged and measurements recorded

·         28 tagged trees assessed for condition at Bimbi

·         72 tagged trees located and assessed for condition at Aire R

·         22 koalas captured for health assessment and collar check

·         154 locations of radiocollared koalas recorded

·         4 trees collared

·         Lots of laughs!  

A big THANK YOU to my volunteers: Heather, Leigh, Vicki, Dolores, Helen and Louise; and staff: Cass and Vic for this absolutely amazing effort, and for your never-ending enthusiasm and companionship.

The November team

 

As for our koalas:



Tony Parker - mug shot

Tony Parker lived up to his legendary status.  He dropped his collar on Day 1 of the trip and we didn’t find him until the last day.  He made me climb to catch him and then casually moved into a neighbouring tree just as I got into position.  It was a major effort (for us, not him) to finally get him down the tree. 

 

 

 

Frank is just as feisty as ever and again tried to attack me as soon as he was on the ground.  Dave is doing well and always bellows a greeting and sometimes shows his excitement in ‘other ways’ (use your imagination here). After the excitement of recollaring Banjo in October, he has managed to yet again break his weaklink and is currently MIA.  Claire is also MIA.  Buffy has a joey ‘Willow’ that is extremely cute, and Ruby obviously is ready for another. The whole team was lucky (or perverted?) enough to watch Ruby and Kevin ‘hook up’.  Ruby actually initiated it – Kevin appeared surprised but certainly up to the task.

Ruby’s former joey Benjamin is now apparently independent and perhaps a bit lonely.  He took a liking to Dolores, chased her and started climbing up her leg.  Even after being prised off and released, he still attempted to climb the nearest pair of legs.



Wally

Bruce

Wally and Bruce are my biggest concerns. Wally had a huge abscess on his upper forearm. We didn’t notice it until it burst during handling. It’s typical of a fight wound. He was still able to climb and was observed in the next few days high in the canopy, but he’s lost almost 1kg since we weighed him in October. Bruce is looking battle-weary. No major wounds but his ears are torn and bloody, and he’s lost 1.5kg since October.

The rest are looking good. New recruit Stevie kept us busy guessing where he was going to move to next (he's now down near Lighthouse Rd), and Beast likes the isolated trees between the site and Big Hill.

Stevie

We also have three new koalas: Cyril, Harry and Sally. The two new boys are wearing new GPS collars (thanks to the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife).


 

Sally and her joey

 

And, as for what it all means….

I'm still wading through all the data but some preliminary analysis tells a pretty grim story for Manna Gum at the Cape.  In April 2011, almost half the trees assessed in the main site (where koalas are being tracked), had a reasonably healthy canopy of >50% cover. Now, less than 5% have >50% cover (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Decline in %trees with >50% canopy cover from April 2011 to November 2012.

If we just look at those trees that we have monitored since April 2011, mean percent. canopy cover has declined from 51% to 33% (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Mean %Canopy Cover of trees monitored since April 2011

This really is no surprise considering that there are around 18 koalas per hectare munching on the trees in the site.

So, what do we do? That is the question that both landholders and the Victorian government is now asking.

Cull? We can’t cull koalas – culling is not permitted under the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy (and that is not going to change!)

Translocate? It would not be effective to translocate koalas – koalas would just move in from neighbouring areas, and besides, translocation does not always have a happy ending for the translocated animal.

Sterilise? It would not be effective to sterilise koalas – the trees are already struggling and sterilisation takes a long time to act to reduce a population.

Protect and restore habitat? I think this is the only way forward but one that will take a lot of effort and money.  It also won’t ‘solve’ the problem but at least we will save some Manna Gum which can serve as seed trees for future revegetation efforts.

But, what happens to the koalas?  Will they starve as the trees die? Or will they move on in search of better habitat?  I suspect there will be a bit of both.  Some koalas won’t have the energy to move.  They may already be weak from fighting during the breeding season, or may be burdened by joeys.  However, results from our radiotracking show that koalas (both males and females) are able to make long-distance movements.  Some of our koalas have moved several kilometres over a period of days or weeks.  Sometimes, they have spent several days in areas where there are no food trees.  Only time will tell….

 

Cape Otway Koalas in the news

A reporter holidaying at Cape Otway noticed the dead trees and koalas and suggested to his editor that they do a story on the issue.  This article in the Geelong Advertiser resulted in a flurry of interest from radio stations (including national ABC radio) and two TV channels (7 and 9 news).  Frank Fotinas (owner of Bimbi Park) found himself in the limelight and decided to share some of the attention with me.  I was busy for most of the day with radio interviews and 2 TV interviews.  Things quietened down fairly quickly but the media has sparked the interestof the makers of the ABC show 'Catalyst'.  They will be coming to the Cape in December to film our research activities and do a more indepth story on the issue and our research.

The following is just some of the news:
Geelong Advertiser: http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2012/10/10/352819_news.html
ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-10/koalas-destroying-cape-otway-manna-gums/4305628

Hail, gale-force winds, leeches.... and the crew kept smiling

A big thank you to my latest Earthwatch volunteers: John, Ken, Claire, Karin, Joan and Vicky.  You not only survived the blue gum experience (complete with giant leeches), being hailed on, endless tree assessments, and having two slave masters (me and Alistair), but were still smiling at the end of it.  Hmmmmm..... Is there something wrong with you?

 

About to leave Bimbi Park. Look at those awesome tree collars!

Some might say that the trip got off to a shaky start.  I had to attend a seminar being given by one of my students and was also collecting a visiting researcher (Ben) from the airport so was driving down later in the day.  This meant that Alistair (co-PI) had the task of meeting the team in Apollo Bay.  Unfortunately, no-one was wearing an Earthwatch t-shirt and the team were expecting to be met by me.  After a few phone calls between one of the team members, Earthwatch, myself and Alistair, the confusion was sorted out and Alistair and the team were united and on their way to Bimbi Park.

 

Ben and I arrived just in time for dinner (I have impeccable timing), and a discussion of the week's activities.  Alistair was keen to head back into the blue gums (this time with an EPIRB, and repellent to keep the leeches at bay), but we also had to complete koala counts, and tree assessments at some of our sites, radiotrack our collared koalas, and capture more koalas for collaring. With Alistair leading this trip, my main purpose was to help Ben with a 'bellow playback' study.  Timetabling all of this, especially considering the 'not so good' weather forecast, was going to be interesting.

 

So, let me tell you more about this 'bellow playback' study.  It's pretty cool stuff and a whole new field of research for me.  Ben is an expert in mammal vocalisations and has been studying this type of thing with a whole range of different species for ages though.  With koalas, he has found that there is information on the identity, especially size, of a male koala in a bellow.  In free-ranging animals, you would expect that a male koala could use this information to decide whether confronting the source of the bellow is a good idea or not.  It would make sense for a male koala to confront a smaller male because he'd likely be able to whop it in a fight; but it would probably be best for him to avoid interacting with a larger male.  We were going to put this theory to the test by broadcasting bellows (one made to sound like a huge male, and another made to sound like a small male) to my male koalas and measuring their response.

 

Our original plan was to catch 2 males per day for fitting with a radiocollar with an accelerometer (to measure activity), a GPS (to measure movement) and an audio recorder (to measure bellows) in response to the 'playback'.  The original plan also involved catching the koalas again after the playback to retrieve the devices.  As per any well-planned field study, the original plan went out the window after day 1.  After two catches each of Bruce and Kevin (two of my bigger males), it became clear that catching was going to be tricky and probably exhausting.  It also became clear that neither Ben or I were going to survive the stress of worrying about the $500 flimsy audio devices on the collars. The responses of the males weren't going to be easy to interpret either and would require direct observation rather than measuring with gadgets on collars.  In the playback to Kevin, Kevin actually started searching for the speaker but then became distracted by the pretty little female sitting in a nearby tree.  Bruce simply just 'didn't give a damn'! 

 



Dave checking out the playback speaker

In the end, Ben resorted to old fashioned observation, with video camera as backup and my audio recorder and microphone to record any bellows by the study animals.  I only had to catch each of these koalas once after the playback to take its measurements and fit it with a radiocollar for continued monitoring of movements during this breeding season.  It appears that many of our boys are like 'Bruce' and don't respond to the playbacks, while others like 'Dave' and a new boy Ben dubbed 'The Beast' go crazy, even attacking the speaker.

While Ben and I were busy playing with koalas, the rest of the team were hard at work with koala counts and tree assessments.  Alistair managed to get his blue gum work done in 3 days, with the help of 2 of the team per day.  Thankfully, the EPIRB stayed in its case and although giant leeches were observed (Claire even videoed one dancing on the datasheet), they didn't appear to be out for blood.  I think Alistair was the only one to require bandaids for a leech bite, and that leech was picked up in the Bimbi West site.

Lucie with her joey 'Lisa'

Radiotracking and the obligatory oohing and ahhing over little joeys was also completed.  We discovered that koala 'Claire' had gone wandering.  Team member 'Claire' helped me find her about 1km to the east of the site.  The team also got to help catch and handle some of the koalas we were collaring. Karin and Joan were the lucky ones who got to help catch 'Princess' (8kg and very sweet), while some less fortunates had to deal with the likes of the feisty 12kg 'Mac' in their first catching experience. We all lived to tell the tale though. Vic, a catcher who came down to help for a few days, thoughtfully demonstrated to us why you don't put your fingers in the way of an angry koala.  Erik left a nice scratch on her thumb.  Thanks Vic!







Not happy and possibly a bit confused!

 And last, but not least, the team spent some time on the last day putting up some tree collars to try and save some of the manna gum around Bimbi Park. Frank (from Bimbi Park) provided the materials and the team did an amazing job. At least one male koala was annoyed that he'd been excluded from his favourite tree.

The next trip is in November when we'll finish off the counts and tree assessments.  There'll be more catching to do (I have to change over some GPS devices), radiotracking, and ....... the list goes on and on.

I'm looking forward to it!


 

Soggy koalas

I'm often asked why I don't run a fieldtrip to Cape Otway in June or July.  The answer of course is.... 'THE WEATHER'.

I spent the day yesterday looking for soggy koalas, writing on soggy data sheets, while trying very hard not to let any of the tracking gear or my camera get equally soggy.  I managed to keep myself fairly dry although am wondering what 'weather-proof' means when applied to field pants? Proven to get you wet when it rains perhaps? 



Bruce



All of our collared koalas had survived the record rains of the past week and generally didn't look too wet. 

I managed to snap some photos of Bruce and Willy (not collared but tagged Gr111 in a previous study).  Willy was in the same tree we caught him in at the beginning of last year.

   

I also got the chance to have a closer look at 'Scar'.  I'm still amazed at how a koala could have survived an injury like his.  I also wonder how he came by it....



Scar





Scar



But back to the weather..... the graph below shows how 2012 is stacking up against long-term averages for Cape Otway.  March was certainly wetter than average and June is shaping up to be the same.  After only 9 days we're at 85% of the rainfall you would expect for the whole month. Great news if you're a Manna Gum!

My baby manna gum are slowly but surely growing although it will be a while before they can be planted out.  Bimbi Park will be doing some planting of there own in the next month or so.  They committed to planting one Manna Gum per 5 'Likes' on their Facebook page.  If you haven't already visited their page, make sure you do and 'Like' this idea: http://www.facebook.com/Bimbipark