Melbourne, Australia Australia – One would think that koalas are easy to find and count. They are big. They are fluffy. They are mostly stable because they sleep about 20 hours a day.
Not special.
“It’s the fact that they don’t move very far, which makes it difficult for them to find a place,” said Desley Whiston, a wildlife ecologist at Deakin University in Victoria.
This attempts to record the Australian government’s census of native marsupials and where they live more desperately. In November, the government announced that it would commission a commission of 2 million Australian dollars (1.5 1.5 million) to fund the race’s audit debt and use new methods to do so.
When the count begins, heat-sewing drones, acoustic surveys and detector dogs will be arranged. Individuals will don hiking boots and bush for some koala spotting. Will also look for many koala droppings.
Koala’s population estimates have changed dramatically throughout history. In 2016, scientists estimated that there are more than 300,000 koalas in Australia. In mid-2019, the Australian Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are fewer than 80,000 people living in the country and said that number could be as low as 43,000. Concerns and confusion over the number of kolas were exacerbated during Australia’s devastating bushfires last year, which led to a “functional extinction” of the animals in a news article. But scientists have challenged the accuracy of that description.
A study by the World Wildlife Fund estimates that more than 611,000 koalas were killed, injured or displaced by wildfires last summer.
Even before the bushfires destroyed the koala population, there were fears that the animals were in trouble. Scientists and conservation organizations say the loss of habitat due to landslides is increasingly sending koalas to urban areas – and sometimes to people’s Christmas trees – where they are crushed by cars and attacked by dogs. Koala’s population under stress is also at higher risk of fatal diseases, experts say.
The last national census conducted in 2016 asked scientists to simply estimate the number in some regions, bringing the number to about 33,000 to 13,000,000 for a single state.
“With all our focus on koalas, scientists are telling us where the population really is, how they are going, and there is a serious lack of data about the best ways to help recover after devastating bushfires.” Lay, said in a statement at the time of the announcement.
The traditional method of calculating koala was to see how many places people could see. But when marsupials are high in the trees, whenever they are hidden and obscured by an umbrella, they are easy to miss with the naked eye, says Dr. Said Whistler. Calculations can vary depending on the individual and the individuals and conditions, so that the method can cut the figure from 20 percent to 80 percent of the true population of any one location.
“For me personally, I see more koalas in the morning than at noon.” “By noon, you’re feeling a little bored, your eyes are a little tired, and you want to come home, so you can run it a little bit.”
Since this is Australia, the adventure of the bush to count the koalas will probably mean fighting various creepy-crawls that mean snakes or bites, making it difficult to concentrate.
“All sorts of things you’re looking for can take your mind off and change the chances of seeing a koala,” said Dr. Allison.
So scientists decided to use some other methods. Small brown spots – koala plants – found at the base of trees can determine if they live in an area. Search dogs can detect both koala and its offspring. Male koalas are humble during the breeding season, so scientists can leave recording devices on the sites whether the koalas are around or not.
Koalas in remote or hard-to-reach places can be counted using heat-seeking drones, but only in cold weather, as animal fur provides a lot of insulation and they do not give off much heat.
If all those methods are used together, and if used well, the calculation with a margin of only 10 percent of the error can be completed, said Dr. Wh. Wisne.
Minister of Environment Ms. A national workshop of koala experts will be held next year to determine the best way to conduct the calculation, a Lena spokesman said. The spokesman added, “The audit will take several months from there, depending on the issues identified and the strategy identified.”
Dr Wisne emphasized that Australian officials were not waiting for the results of the audit to take into account the declining population. There is already abundant data to show that parts of the country are seeing a decline in the number of koalas, he said.
“If the calculation takes a few years to build, we will see the numbers continue to decline over that time,” he warned.
In fact, 23 conservation groups last week demanded in an open letter that “koalas need more than a census” that the government does more about housing conservation. “The degradation of Koala’s habitat has increased under your government and is continuing now,” he said in a letter to the environment minister. “Koalas are not waiting for the national census to announce their numbers. They are now on the edge of the knife. ”
Rebecca Cable, Oceania’s regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, was rushed home, citing “the calculation of the koala as deck chairs on the Titanic as if it were sinking.”
Some defense groups are already taking matters into their own hands.
The World Wildlife Fund aims to double the koala population in eastern Australia Encourage landowners to build koala shelters.
