Canines for Wildlife are the principal authors in a report just delivered to Jaliigirr Biodiversity Alliance. The detection dogs located scats from 92 different koalas across the project area. The Bellingen-Coffs Harbour koala population is shown to be of high genetic diversity with a low presence of Chlamydia disease. This is a significant body of work that highlights the importance of not only the maintenance and retention of wildlife corridors, but also the strengthening of those corridors. Wildlife corridors allow wildlife to move across the landscape as climate changes.

Funding for this important work came from a number of projects, including:

• Canine scent detectives promoting koala population health in Coffs coast corridors
• Cores, Corridors and Koalas: A Collaborative Approach to Restoring the Forests of Eastern Australia
• Jaliigirr Koala Conservation Action in the Coffs Harbour & Bellingen ARKS

Other funding bodies include North Coast Local Land Services , Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council and Transgrid. 

JBA contracted the University of Sunshine Coast’s (UniSC) Detection Dogs for Conservation team (DDC) to genetically analyse the set of koala scat samples. Their report can be found here.

You can read the full report by Canines for Wildlife here.