Page 14 - BOL Nov20 Edition

Koala search team ready

for bushfire season

Associate Professor Celine Frere, Dr Romane Cristescu and Bear

With Australia’s bushfire season fast approaching, a team as with drones and dogs we can find many koalas that otherwise
that specialises in finding koalas in fire-ravaged locations is can escape the naked human eye. And in places such as QLD
gearing up for another huge effort. and NSW, where populations are already declining, every koala
counts.
After last summer’s fires destroyed vast tracts of bushland
across eastern Australia, USC’s Detection Dogs for Conservation “Last year we found koalas struggling with and dying from burns,
team spent many days searching for surviving koalas using dehydration and malnutrition weeks after the fires had been
heat-seeking drones and the now world-famous USC x contained, and we were able to find help for them. That is
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) koala why we are preparing now for the 2020-2021 season.”
detection dog Bear. “ Bear, whose skills last year caught the attention
of Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, is one of a
The detection dogs team, which was co- team of USC detection dogs.
founded in 2015 by USC researchers Bear was our secret
Associate Professor Celine Frere and Dr
Romane Cristescu, searched for koalas weapon during these
across more than 5,000 hectares of land
in partnership with IFAW. fires. His ability to smell
what we can’t see
Dr Cristescu said the team was now
bracing itself for another long summer of was crucial to locating
scouring scorched bushland.
survivors.
“While it is unlikely that we will see bushfires
to the scale of last year, we are still preparing
for multiple fires that can impact many hectares
of koala habitat during the next fire season – especially, this
year, Queensland has higher than average risk of bushfires,” Dr
Cristescu said.

“We expect we might be called upon, with our partners at IFAW,
by different wildlife rescue groups, to help them locate koalas -