'Count them:' Australia urges citizens to record koala sightings

ANKARA

Australia’s national science agency on Thursday urged its citizens to record koala sightings in the Koala Spotter app, to help build the most accurate national population count to date.

In a statement, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said the app played a key role in the National Koala Monitoring Program's (NKMP) population count, with 730 records contributed by citizen scientists to date.

“Koalas can be difficult to spot from the ground, and as they are most active at night, they often rest high in trees during the day,” CSIRO Quantitative Biologist Dr. Andrew Hoskins said.

Koalas, the tree-climbing animals native to Australia, live in the forests and are highly affected by deforestation.

According to the statement, the populations of the iconic marsupial were officially listed as endangered across New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland in February 2022.

“To count the species, scientists have been using thermal drones to spot koalas from above, deploying acoustic recorders in the field and detection dogs, conducting scat analysis, while also carrying out systematic visual surveys and data integration from previous and historic sources," Hoskins said.

The latest koala national population estimate is between 224,000 and 524,000. The next estimate is due in March 2025, according to the statement.

Last year, Australia's New South Wales banned logging in parts of the proposed Great Koala National Park to save koalas from extinction in the state.

In 2020, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said that more than 60,000 koalas were killed, injured or displaced by the 2019-2020 bushfires in Australia.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid