I REFER to your article “Injured koalas turned away by RSPCA” [Ipswich Tribune, September 27, P1]
It is my persistent question, with regards to this iconic, loved animal; ‘Why are they being allowed to disappear?’.
I once had 50 acres in the Otways forest in Western Victoria. There wasn’t much vegetation on it when we arrived.
Last night I had a vivid dream of a rescue of a koala and its two joeys there. Wild dogs were after them. The mother lay down and let me carry her to safety.
In reality I started planting local trees at a rapid rate. Some 12 years later walking amongst these trees I spotted a koala high in the canopy, my second shortly afterwards turned up on my letter box post right next to the road. Since then a huge network of wildlife corridors have appeared everywhere and the koalas are coming back.
Fast forward to Ipswich. In a meeting a few years back with Ipswich City Council’s then Interim Administrator Greg Chemello, he said that koalas were doomed in this area as development had reduced their habitat to pockets too small to sustain them.
A local developer Golf Links was granted an application to develop a 300 house estate close to me. I managed to get hold of its history. I noted something which referred to the then forest area, designated as koala habitat having been inspected by an “animal spotter” and no evidence had been found of koala activity in recent times. I investigated these “animal spotters” and as far as I could gather, only two existed in Southeast Queensland.
Investigating further a local showed me a photograph of a koala one year prior to the Ipswich Council granting the application to the developer.
To combat the disappearance of koala habitat in our region my suggestion is the expansion and protection of wildlife corridors along our creeks and the connection of remaining pockets of habitats.
Wild dogs, the main predators of koalas [though some would say, the council and developers] should be subjected to a trapping program. A koala dream which could then come true.
- DAVID HARRIS, Bellbird Park