Expanding cities, land clearance and the spread of chlamydia in particular are devastating Australia's koala population. But scientists are hopeful their vaccine research may help preserve one of the country's most iconic animals.
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00:00Clinging to a fluffy koala toy more than double her size, orphaned Joey Adjuni is the latest
00:06rescue for volunteer Emma Meadows.
00:08Adjuni was actually found by herself in the middle of Appen Road just after midnight by
00:13a lovely gentleman who obviously swerved to avoid hitting her and then stopped and picked
00:18her up off the road.
00:19She came into care at 580 grams, so she's put on just over 100 grams in the week and
00:25a little bit that she's been in care.
00:27But the baby marsupial is a lucky survivor.
00:30Her mother was found nearby suffering critical injuries after being hit by a car.
00:35For Meadows, it is a familiar story as Australia's rapidly expanding cities increasingly force
00:39koalas to risk roads and dog attacks in search of eucalyptus trees or a mate.
00:45It's hard.
00:46It's hard at times.
00:47You know, seeing what we see, those 40 koalas that have been hit on Appen Road in the last
00:51two years, I've pretty much pulled every single one of those bodies off the road or taken
00:55them to the vet to be, you know, to die.
00:58So it's huge.
00:59It's a massive toll.
01:02Estimates of koala numbers in the wild vary greatly, with the latest government data suggesting
01:06there are between 224,000 and 524,000 animals.
01:12In 2022, the Australian government listed koalas in New South Wales, Queensland and
01:17the Australian Capital Territory as threatened.
01:21Koala wandering for food and shelter also poses another risk, one that experts warn
01:25could wipe out the animals within decades.
01:29A large number of the populations have chlamydia within them.
01:33There's one really significant population in south-west Sydney which is chlamydia free
01:38and that's the population that everybody's very jealously guarding.
01:41There is no guarantee into the future that every one of the koalas that gets out doesn't
01:49become infected by a population that's close by and then come back in.
01:53Professor Annabel Olsen, whose wildlife hospital is in the heart of Sydney's last chlamydia-free
01:58koala population, says without action, the disease, which causes infertility and even
02:03death, could further devastate the species.
02:07If we continue on the trajectory we're on with habitat destruction, you know, our grandchildren
02:13or at least their grandchildren are going to see maybe koalas in a zoo if they're lucky.
02:17It'll be the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger all over again.
02:20But University of Sunshine Coast researcher Samuel Phillips may have a new vaccine that
02:25could bolster efforts to save the fluffy tree dwellers.
02:28We were able to show that a vaccine that targets a specific gene within chlamydia can have
02:34a positive effect on the koala population.
02:37Our plan is to roll this out in addition to a lot of the methods that are currently being
02:42developed to protect koala populations that are at risk.
02:46Phillips' team vaccinated and monitored 165 koalas for 10 years and found inoculated marsupials
02:53developed chlamydia later in life and the mortality was reduced by 64 per cent.
02:58A Queensland trial of the vaccination used in conjunction with traffic and predator controls
03:04was so successful that a local koala population that had been doomed for extinction within
03:0910 years instead rebounded.
03:12Chlamydia vaccine research will probably be quite pivotal for populations that we're
03:18trying to protect from the disease of infertility if you like, but I have to stress that this
03:24research is in its infancy and in the immediate future there's no magic pill that's going
03:30to fix this chlamydia problem.
03:33For Olsen and her team, the vaccine could be a vital defence, but she says better conservation
03:39is still within reach.
03:41While it seems doom and gloom at the moment, we can afford to be a little bit positive
03:45and say we still have the potential to make this right.
03:50It won't be tomorrow, it won't be next year, but as long as we are all in that mindset
03:55that this is an achievable task, then it is going to be possible for our grandchildren
04:00and their grandchildren to actually see koalas in the wild.
04:07The time to act was already yesterday, last year, last decade.
04:12I'm scared it's too late.
04:15I continue to do what I do because somebody needs to make a difference and I feel that
04:20this is one way in the world that I can make a difference.
04:23It breaks my heart because I want everybody's children to be able to see what we've got
04:26and I want them to see them in the wild.
04:28We need to have wild populations and we really need to act and we need to do something because
04:32it's not okay to leave this planet without this species and that's what our generation
04:38and the generations before us are doing.