Friends of the Koala Update by President Patsy Hunt

During what has been a difficult year for many community groups, the Friends Of the Koalas Committee kept in touch and managed to hold a few meetings and to formally hold our AGM in April 2021.
While volunteering hasn’t been possible, we continued to lobby on issues that would affect koalas and their habitat and managed to make a few donations to organisations caring for koalas or wildlife habitat. 

We plan to continue doing so in 2022 and also to provide newsletters.
Koalas have certainly been in the news lately as the realisation that koalas are in real trouble in eastern Australia becomes clear.
Koala populations are being affected by bushfires, land clearing, logging, disease and climate change. Koalas in Victoria are currently not regarded as threatened, as those in NSW and Queensland are, on the basis that there are still some areas with high populations. 

However, this is misleading as most of Victoria’s koalas are descended from animals relocated from Phillip Island and French Island and are now becoming inbred and genetically poor.
The only genetically sound koalas in Victoria are the Strzelecki koalas whose numbers are not accurately known, especially after so many were killed in the recent bushfires. 
Thankfully, realisation of the importance of the Strzelecki koalas is now growing but more needs to be done.

It would be great if the Phillip Island Nature Parks could use the Koala Conservation Reserve’s excellent facilities to assist with the preservation of the Strzelecki koala in particular.
This year will mark 30 years since the Koala Conservation Centre was opened. Its creation followed a 1989 report by the Phillip Island Koala Working Group and the Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands (now DELWP) entitled “A proposal to establish a Koala Enclosure on Phillip Island“.
The site was chosen and work began in 1991 with the first koalas arriving in late 1991 (not from Phillip Island) and the centre was officially opened in June 1992. 
At that time it was managed by the Penguin Parade Board. The rest of the Island’s reserves, Churchill Island and coastal assets remained under state government management until the creation of the Phillip Island Nature Park in late 1996.

Friends of the Koalas Inc. formed in 1990 and was heavily involved with the establishment of the centre, including helping to plant the many trees in the plantation used to feed the centre’s koalas.
In the years before the Nature Parks’ creation the group worked with the Department of Conservation and Environment Rangers to help with the regrowth of the reserves, such as the Oswin Roberts Reserve, and also assisted with annual koala counts on the island.

Sadly, the number of free ranging koalas on the island continues to fall with only three found in the five-yearly Island wide count in October (two in Oswin Roberts and one in the Ventnor Koala Reserve) with estimates of the island population between 10 and 15. 
The koalas at the Conservation Reserve are ageing (there are now 18 koalas there) and the earlier breeding success has not continued, meaning the future of koalas on Phillip Island is bleak.

The Friends of the Koalas AGM which was due to be held on January 22 has been postponed due to the Covid situation and will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
For further information phone 0419 552 385.