Koala's grim future
NOOSA's koala population may be at a tipping point, meaning the days of spotting these amazing creatures in the national park could be numbered.
This decline in the quality of a former haven will be among the talking points of the Sunshine Coast Koala Summit at the Central Queensland University campus at Noosaville on August 7 and 8.
Such a high-powered gathering of koala experts could be the last chance to save Australia's most loved species on the Coast, according to Noosa's Carolyn Beaton, of Koala Diaries.
"To the best of our knowledge there is one lone koala surviving in the Caloundra city area - and we are concerned that he has not been sighted recently - and only two observed with any regularity in the headland section of Noosa National Park, where they are keenly sought out by tourists," Ms Beaton said.
"There is now substantial evidence to indicate that wild koala numbers on the Sunshine Coast have been in decline for more than a decade and are arguably beyond their tipping point in several areas, meaning that localised extinction is looming without management intervention."
She said in April the Federal Government listed koalas in Queensland, NSW and the ACT as vulnerable for the first time under federal environment law.
"The Federal Government had been made aware that areas in south-east Queensland that were once strongholds for the species - such as Noosa Heads, including Noosa National Park, and Caloundra - have been implicated in the most dramatic declines, with numbers now believed to be in single figures in those locations."
The summit has sprung from a meeting that Coast koala supporters held this year with Sunshine Coast Council.
Representatives from four koala conservation organisations active in the Sunshine Coast region are co-hosting the summit.
They are Sunshine Coast Koala Wildlife Rescue, Koala Action Pine Rivers, Moreton Bay Koala Rescue and Koala Diaries.
