Koala Study

The anticipation surrounding the Koala Study day on Magnetic Island was unreal. All of us in BIOL 3100 were thrilled to be studying and “working” with these adorable animals. I even remember back in Sydney some people at the Featherdale Zoo claiming they didn’t want to pay for the picture with the koala because we would be holding them and studying them up close and personal in Magnetic Island. I had even expressed how excited I was to my mom the day before the koala study to hold an actual koala. Boy, were we in for a rude awakening! The day finally came to do the koala study, and our day started bright and early in the morning. That was when we learned we would actually be collecting koala poop! This tidbit of information was a bit of a disappointment, to say the least. We thought all of our hopes and dreams of interacting with these animals were completely crushed. So, we carried on with the study and each grabbed a bike of our own to make it down to the forest where we would be sampling the koala population.

Once we arrived at the forest of eucalyptus leaves, the lead researcher demonstrated the very systematic way of collecting the koala poop. To begin, we created our transect which was 50 meters long and 1 meter wide. Then in pairs, we used a meter stick to rake very precise sections of our transect for the koala poop. However, Hannah and I got unlucky and were stuck with the section of the transect covered in logs and a plethora of fallen leaves that we had to clear. Keep in mind there was also a fear of venomous snakes called death adders and crocodiles from the nearby swamp. We were very scared, to say the least, to complete this part. After a long few hours of doing what felt like yard work, we finished collecting over a couple hundred pellets of koala poop. As bad as it was, I at least was not the designated sniffer. Yes, the job title is exactly as it sounds, each group had a sniffer to check the freshness of the koala poop. All this time had passed, and I had still not seen a koala.

Luckily for us, that quickly changed. After collecting the data, we biked to a nearby koala sanctuary. We walked through some eucalyptus trees and saw lots of adorable koalas in their natural habitat which was amazing to see. There was even a mother koala with her little joey. Getting to walk through the nursery made the entire day for me. Once we got back, we had a lecture on koalas and learned all about them and their adaptations. They were basically built to eat all day and sit in a tree. They even have structures to help cushion them just so they can sit for extended periods of time. After the presentation, our class got to go inside and take a tour of all of the animals at Bungalow Bay. This also included taking the famous picture holding the koala. So by the end of the day, everyone was happy and got their pictures. It just took a little bit of hard work and learning to get there.