Travel | July 11, 2024

This Island Is Inhabited by More Koalas Than Humans

Australia’s French Island is home to one of the country’s largest and healthiest koala populations, but it’s not impervious to the species’ struggles

Sleepy koala in lovely daylight_French Island.jpg

Elizabeth Warkentin

Freelance writer

The giant OKA, an Australian Hummer-like all-terrain vehicle, motored down the dirt road, shaking, rattling and rolling so loudly it was nearly impossible to hear my guide, Scott Coutts. A former park ranger who now works for Naturaliste Tours, Coutts drove by vast tracts of cattle- and sheep-grazing fields as we kept an eye out for echidnas, long-nosed potoroos and koalas. Here on French Island, in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, the furry, leaf-eating marsupials were remarkably easy to spot as they snoozed in the crooks of tree branches, cuddled their joeys or munched on eucalyptus leaves.

One of the most unique locations in Australia, French Island, situated 42 miles yet worlds away from Melbourne, is populated by just 110 human inhabitants, an eclectic mix of farmers, eco-conscious granolas and recluses. As the only unincorporated territory in the state of Victoria, the island has no government services whatsoever. No paved roads. No water supply. No electricity. No garbage collection services. No medical services. No police. And the islanders want to keep it that way.

Since there is no bridge to the island, its few thousand annual visitors arrive by foot ferry and often bring their bicycles to tour. Two-thirds of French Island consists of regenerated national park land teeming with 230 bird species and around 600 species of plants, including 105 species of wild orchids. But the stars of this off-grid spot are surely the koalas.

This Island Is Inhabited by More Koalas Than Humans — I toured French Island in an OKA, an Australian Hummer-like all-terrain vehicle. Elizabeth Warkentin

Estimated at 5,000 to 7,000 individuals, the koala population is the largest and healthiest in the state of Victoria, and second only in size to that of Kangaroo Island in the whole country. While Kangaroo Island’s population in the state of South Australia is more bountiful, those koalas “were actually introduced and translocated from the French Island population in the 1970s,” Coutts said.

Sadly, koalas are listed as an endangered species in large parts of Australia. The beloved Australian marsupials are dying from rampant chlamydia, a naturally occurring disease in koalas that helps them self-regulate their population. They are now further threatened by habitat loss, attacks by dogs and collisions with cars. French Island, however, stands out for being home to the last remaining chlamydia-free population in Victoria. While many koalas are found in sanctuaries or wildlife parks across eastern and southeastern Australia, French Island is perhaps the best place to see chlamydia-free koalas in the wild.

Too much of a good thing?

The koalas on French Island are not faring as badly as those in other locations. That’s not to say that the Victorian population of koalas, including those from French Island, do not have other health issues, though. They suffer from a range of genetic defects, says Kelly Smith, an ecologist who manages the Koala Awareness Program through the Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation near Melbourne.

“On French Island, they call them pinhead koalas,” Smith says. “Pinheads because they’ve got small heads and big bodies. And a lot of them have a skewed jaw, which means their jaws aren’t lining up properly, so they can’t eat or chew their [eucalyptus] leaves properly, which can lead to malnutrition and starvation.”

How koalas came to live on French Island in the first place is an interesting story. Coutts, who worked on French Island as a park ranger for 35 years before becoming a guide, said the species is not meant to live on islands. They were introduced. “They say a fisherman brought three juveniles over for his girlfriend in the 1890s,” Coutts said. Evidently, the tree-dwelling marsupials had been hunted to near extinction in the 19th century for their meat and fur, so when the government started a breeding program on the mainland to save them, five to seven of those koalas were kept aside. Some were put on Phillip Island (across from French Island), where very few live in the wild, and the others were taken to French Island.

“And that’s how the population on French Island started,” said Coutts. “Nobody realized, of course, that they would double in population every three or four years.”

The juvenile koalas that had been introduced to French Island in the 1890s had not been exposed to any sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia. “Which naturally controls the koala population,” said Coutts. What’s more, since the French Island koala population was never exposed to the disease and has stayed isolated from the rest of Australia’s koalas, it has managed to remain chlamydia-free.

Currently, the Koala Management Program, a joint project of Parks Victoria and Victoria’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action started on the island in 2008, tags the female koalas and administers levonorgestrel implants, a human contraceptive. Smith says this treatment is causing them health problems and may be the source of the pinhead issue.

But, with too few gum trees—as Aussies call eucalypts—on French Island, where many have been removed for cattle and sheep grazing, the koalas are essentially eating themselves out of house and home. Each koala needs hundreds of eucalyptus trees to have enough leaves to consume throughout their lives, which in the wild spans approximately 10 to 12 years. “There are too many koalas on the island, because they don’t have enough trees,” says Smith. “Their habitat is disappearing.”

Compounding the matter is the locals’ terror of bushfires. According to Smith, many think the solution is to chop down more trees, including the eucalyptus the koalas desperately rely on for survival, which, undoubtedly, will make things hotter still. “It’s not very smart,” says Smith.

Due to the surplus of koalas and their chlamydia-free status, the Koala Management Program translocates about 200 koalas from French Island each year to other locations in mainland Victoria that share similar habitats.

“What they’re doing on French Island is they’re euthanizing the koalas that have the birth defects and they’re translocating the ones that don’t,” Smith says. “They’re trying to increase genetic diversity,” to ensure the species’ chances of survival.

But this is only part of the story. It’s a lot uglier in other parts of Victoria and Australia. “What’s happening in Australia with koalas is horrific,” Smith says. “The truth is not a happy story.”

Despite what koalas suffer as a consequence of human activity, and sometimes outright cruelty, the Victorian government does not consider the species to be vulnerable.

“When you hear that koalas in Australia are listed as endangered, that doesn’t include the Victorian koalas,” says Smith. “The Victorian and South Australian koalas are not listed as endangered, because the state governments believe they’re overabundant. It’s the ones in New South Wales and Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory that are listed as endangered. Those ones have got really low numbers of koalas but really high genetic diversity, while the koalas down south have got really high numbers but really low genetic diversity.”

Sometimes referred to as the “koala whisperer,” Smith is in high demand these days. Having graduated as an ecologist only a few years ago, after having spent many years as a veterinary nurse, she frequently fields calls from journalists. “It’s because I tell the truth about what’s really happening with the koalas,” Smith says.

The prognosis for koalas in the state of Victoria and in Australia as a whole is not promising. According to Smith, their survival depends on halting deforestation and also whether conservationists are able to increase the genetic diversity of the southern koalas in Victoria and South Australia states.

“If things keep going this way, the northern population [Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory] will disappear in the next 20 years,” she says. “Down south we need to increase genetic diversity, and deforestation needs to stop, otherwise the southern koalas’ genetic diversity will become even lower.”

Seeing koalas in the wild brings hope

As Coutts drove our group of two down the “avenue” of manna gums, we stopped often so I could get out to observe and photograph koalas in the trees. The manna trees, or Eucalyptus viminalis, along this public roadside, which is situated more or less in the center of the island, and throughout the national park, were planted many years ago by park rangers and volunteers. I became captivated watching the endearing creatures up close, in the wild—not in a wildlife park like so many others. Sometimes the marsupials sat practically at eye level, watching us with their sleepy eyes from the crook of a gum tree limb, but most times the adults were positioned higher up.

Koalas are naturally solitary animals. They don’t like to be in close proximity to other koalas, let alone humans. They definitely do not want to be held by humans. While it can hard for the layperson to notice, since the little marsupials are so docile, being held stresses them. Mostly they want to sleep, because gum leaves make them sleepy. Participants in Naturaliste Tours therefore must keep a respectful distance so as not to upset the arboreal creatures.

We spent some time with one individual in particular who was perched midway up a tall manna gum tree with long, feathery, silvery-green leaves like those of an olive tree, and orange-brown bark, some of it peeling off in long ribbons to reveal a smooth, white skin underneath. With the sunlight dappling through the silvery leaves of the tree, the koala began climbing higher in search of fresh leaves. It was an idyllic Australian moment, and I felt a stirring in my soul in the presence of the manna gums, endemic to southeastern Australia and surely among the most beautiful trees in the world. They also happen to be koalas’ favorite food source, though they do eat other types of eucalyptus leaves.

My encounters, as I’m sure is the case with other tourists to French Island, helped me understand the island’s natural values and the importance of maintaining a good balance between reforestation and current threats such as the over-browsing of gum trees by koalas—though the species should never have been translocated here in the first place.

Soon afterward, Coutts spotted a baby koala. The mother didn’t seem to be around. The baby didn’t look badly off, but seemed more aware of us than the others, never closing his eyes. Coutts worried that the joey could be in some distress, so he called the Koala Management Program. A team from the program visits the island each spring, so October and November in the case of southern Australia, to monitor koala health, implant the females with contraceptives to manage numbers, translocate healthy ones with fewer genetic defects, and work on the protection and restoration of koala habitat. Coutts informed them about the joey and his whereabouts so they could check on him later.

Now, seven months later, when I catch up with Coutts over the phone, I ask him how the joey fared. “They never found the mother, but they checked the koala out,” he says. “It’s still there, doing really well.”

I’m amazed. “We do get a few orphans,” says Coutts, “and that was one of them. Once their mothers have introduced them to eating eucalyptus leaves, they don’t need the mother. They don’t need the mother’s milk or anything.” Coutts estimates the orphan joey we saw was about five months old. No one knows what became of the mother.

Since I didn’t have a photo of the orphan, Coutts sent me one. The joey, now a young adult, makes me feel hopeful that one of Australia’s most beloved yet embattled species can survive. After all, if the little guy can do it after losing his mother at such a young age, perhaps there’s a chance for the rest of the species.

Provided they have enough eucalyptus trees.

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