Wildlife workers and researchers say Kangaroo Island koalas displaced by the removal of controversial Tasmanian blue gum plantations are starving — and an urgent solution is required.
Key points:
- A 2021 survey estimated 15,000 koalas lived on the island
- The animals are being displaced as the island's timber plantations come down
- Locals say a koala management plan is needed as displaced animals are destroying native plants
In 2021, timber company Kiland committed to converting its 18,696 hectares of plantation to land for traditional agricultural production.
Two years into the process, Kangaroo Island Wildlife Network president Katie Welz said while "every single person" on the island was happy to see the plantations go, they were now 20 years old and established habitat for wildlife.
She said many animals were losing their homes — and koalas were also losing their food source.
Mrs Welz said since November last year, her group had cared for numerous animals with crush injuries.
"It's very frustrating because daily there are animals from multiple species … being affected and nothing's being done about it," she said.
Calls for a koala refuge
Much of the island's plantation land was damaged in the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires.
But Mrs Welz is calling on the state government to acquire some of the unburnt land for use as a temporary koala refuge, while a long-term management plan for the species is put in place.
"What we … would love to see is a sacrificial plantation where healthy koalas can be put in to live out their natural lives," she said.
Koalas are not indigenous to Kangaroo Island and were introduced in the 1920s.
"Regardless of how you feel about koalas and how they came to be here … it's an animal welfare issue," Ms Welz said.
"We're seeing koalas starving and being displaced in large numbers and this is just not good enough."
She said koalas allowed to live in a temporary refuge could be sterilised, and once gone the blue gums could be removed.
Support for a refuge
The concept of a temporary refuge was supported by Karen Burke Da Silva and Julian Beaman from Flinders University's Koala Hub, who said there was both an animal welfare issue and a need to protect native vegetation on the island.
They said the island's vegetation had not fully recovered from the Black Summer bushfires, and as koalas displaced by the plantation shutdown moved into farmland and areas of roadside vegetation, over-browsing was occurring.
Their research indicates there is a low density of koalas (0 to 0.6 per hectare) in burnt plantation sites, but high to very high densities (2 to 7 koalas per hectare) in unburnt sites.
Professor Da Silva and Dr Beaman agreed a refuge would provide authorities with more time to consider koala management options.
They said trial translocations of Kangaroo Island koalas to managed sites in eastern Australia, where koala numbers were rapidly declining, could be an option.
History of the island's koalas
Koalas were introduced to the island in the 1920s, amid fears they could become extinct on the mainland. Eighteen animals were released in Flinders Chase National Park, but their numbers quickly expanded.
Between 1997 and the time of the fires, more than 12,300 koalas were sterilised and 3,800 were relocated to south-east South Australia, in an attempt to control their numbers on the island.
A 2010 survey estimated the koala population was 14,000, but in 2015 — the first time the plantations were included in the survey — that number jumped to 48,000.
Only 8,500 were believed to have survived the island's devastating 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires.
A spokesperson for the state Department for Environment and Water said a survey taken two years ago estimated the koala population had recovered to about 15,000, with about 20 per cent thought to be living in the blue gum plantations.
The spokesperson said the department was aware of the potential impacts on remnant native vegetation as koalas were forced to move, but that it was not considering acquiring or leasing part of the remaining unburnt plantation as a refuge.
The department has no current plan to manage the island's koala population.
Hard decisions need to be made: mayor
Kangaroo Island's Mayor Michael Pengilly said the absence of a koala management plan was a huge problem for the island and some hard decisions would need to be made.
"We reduce kangaroos, wallabies — who are both native species on the island," he said.
"Koalas are an introduced species … common sense needs to take over and reduce those koalas, so they don't grow exponentially again and so they don't continue to wipe out our native vegetation."
Mr Pengilly said he was sceptical about the effectiveness of sterilisation programs.
He said while a refuge was "all well and good", he was concerned koala numbers would continue to rise rapidly.
"I don't see that as an amenable solution," he said.
Mr Pengilly said, like most people on the island, he was happy to see the back of the plantations, as they had an incubating effect on the Black Summer bushfires.
"It was a dreadful thing, what happened … having the land returned to farming is the best possible outcome for Kangaroo Island," he said.
History of the plantations
Documentary maker Dan Clarke was named South Australia's Journalist of the Year in 2023 for his work on Lost in the Woods: the story of the Kangaroo Island plantations.
He has spent much of the last 18 months absorbed in the history of the plantations and their impact on wildlife and native vegetation.
"There is a lot of division, it's always been a very controversial subject," he said.
"The koalas on Kangaroo Island, they were introduced, but they're such a great thing for tourism — so there's a real mix of opinion."
The Tasmanian blue gum plantations were planted in the early 2000s as a tax and carbon offset scheme.
"The farmers at the time were struggling through the 90s, through the wool crisis and the time …was ripe for that to happen," Mr Clarke said.
"They thought it would save the economy of the island, but looking back now the way it's turned out, those farmers at the time who were against it have turned out to be right."
Mr Clarke said 95 per cent of the island's 20,000 hectares of pine and blue gum plantations were burned by the 2019–20 fires, sparking a secondary environmental catastrophe, as seedlings from the blue gums spread along the island's roadsides and creek systems, crowding out other plant life.
"And this is native vegetation … there's not a lot of it left and we have to protect it as much as we can," he said.
"There's a lot of groups on the island concerned … [that] want to address it as quickly as possible."
Kiland, the owner of the majority of the island's plantations, declined to comment.