Conservationists Use Infrared Drones to Save Australia’s Koalas from Extinction

This koala is snacking on its favorite food.

But here on the east coast of Australia, there are fewer eucalyptus trees than there used to be.

Habitat destruction is just one threat to this species.

Infrared drone technology is now being used to help track koalas in the wild.

The IUCN Red List categorizes koalas as a vulnerable species.

On top of habitat destruction for residential and commercial development, other threats include cars, dog attacks, diseases like Chlamydia and climate change.

The New South Wales (NSW) Threatened Species Advisory Board, an independent committee of scientists appointed by the state’s Minister for the Environment, has commenced a review of the koala’s status, which may see the species upgraded to endangered.

This follows projections released last year by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), that koalas in eastern Australia will be extinct by 2050.

The extinction timeline was confirmed by a NSW parliamentary inquiry report released last month, that noted that the bushfires of 2019-2020 has sped up the decline in numbers.

Douglas Thron is a drone cinematographer from Oakland, California who has moved to Australia to use drone technology to help track koalas in the wild.

Before moving to Australia, Thron was in the Bahamas using his drone to locate and rescue animals after Hurricane Dorian.

While in the Bahamas, Thron was deeply affected by footage of the bushfires unfolding in Australia.

“I saw these videos of basically these koalas getting burnt up and people trying to rescue the koalas,” describes Thron.

“I was just like I’m not going back to California, I’m going to Australia, because I knew my infrared drone could save countless koalas,” Thron says.

The infrared camera makes it easier to spot the koalas.

“You fly the drone over an area while the ground is cooler, and then the heat of the animal pops up and you can see the shape of the koala,” says Thron.

This is a breakthrough method for tracking these notoriously elusive animals.

“Drones are the next level way of quickly finding koalas across hectares of bush,” says Dr Stuart Blanch, Senior Manager of Land Clearing and Restoration at WWF Australia.

“As the cost curve comes down for the equipment and the technology improves, so we can search for drones day and night, accurately, we’ll be able to find more and more koalas in the bush,” Blanch adds.

Sue Gay and her daughter Kate Banister are volunteer koala trackers.

They regularly look for koalas in the bushland surrounding their home in Appin, a town south west of Sydney.

Techniques include looking for fresh scat, or koala faeces, on the ground.

“Others tend to look up into the trees for them, I tend to look down and I can tell more by that,” Banister says.

“Then you’ve got the scratch marks on the trees as well,” Gay describes.

But it’s a slow process tracking koalas this way.

When Gay and Banister find a koala they report their sightings to the government website BioNet NSW which collates biodiversity data.

The pair are motivated to help the species survive after hearing the 2050 extinction date.

“It’s reality that in 30 years we may not have koalas, and our future generations need to be able to have that,” says Banister.

“If anything it was a kick in the bum, let’s get into action and save these guys,” she adds.

WWF is worried about the threats faced by Australia’s dwindling koala populations.

It uses publicly collected population data as well as the drone videos shot by Thron to lobby governments in Australia to do more to protect koala habitat from deforestation and urban development.

“It helps us in our campaigns to call for new protective areas, like national parks or Indigenous protected areas,” Blanch says.

“It helps us to ask or campaign to government, don’t allow that forest to be bulldozed or chopped down because that’s the number one threat at the moment.”

Thron feels privileged to get to look at koalas everyday, but admits he is still learning a lot about them.

“To me, it fascinates me how they can climb amongst those trees and they don’t fall out,” Thron says.

“When we were rescuing them, taking them out of the trees, during the fires, you realize that they may look kind of plump and fat looking but they’re built like a pit bull.”

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