Last week a series of community training workshops were delivered throughout the Inland Burnett as part of our ongoing ‘Burnett Koala Program’. Our latest round of funding from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Koala Fund), will assist in developing the regions first baseline dataset of koala population dynamics and health via the DNA testing of scats, non-invasively collected by the community.
Participants learnt about koala ecology and scat collection, and were provided resources, reports and kits to assist them in koala conservation and contributing to this citizen science data collection project.
Misty Neilson (Ecologist & Project Lead) and Marisa Young (Extension Officer) hosted the 4 x regional workshops with the assistance of Olivia Woosnam (CEnvP) & Alex Dudkowski (CEnvP) from Koala Detection Dogs – OWAD Environment who expertly guided local participants through the steps of effective koala scat collection for DNA testing and demonstrated their detection 3 x dogs 
in action.
in action.If you would like to get involved or report a koala sighting contact [email protected] or call 07 4166 3898.
If you would like to know more about the current activities of the ‘Burnett Koala Program’ visit https://lnkd.in/gufVF_Yc
These current activities build upon and extends previous BCCA citizen science engagement and activities funded by the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science which included the community education and awareness, plus the recording, collating and sharing of incidental koala observations across the region, which can be found here https://lnkd.in/g-2xcxxY
To read the 2021-2022 citizen report for the ‘Burnett Koala Program’ click here https://lnkd.in/gM4S8kJt
This project is funded from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and proudly supported by Wide Bay Burnett Environment Council Inc, Goondicum Pastoral Co and Koala Detection Dogs – OWAD Environment.