On the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, in southern New South Wales, koalas are courting each other, with low-pitched growls echoing through the night.
Twenty-three koalas were introduced to a reserve near Narrandera in the 1970s, the first official translocation of koalas for conservation in the state. "It was a big relief when we found out the genetics are diverse and the koalas are very healthy, and being chlamydia-free is just really important for them."NPWS is working with the Murrumbidgee Landcare Network and Riverina Local Land Services to fill in knowledge gaps about the size of the population and just how far along the river the koalas have spread.
"We put the data through a computer and it takes hours and hours and hours of recording and just chops out the little snippets where it thinks there's a koala — then those little snippets get manually verified."At Berrembed Station, 20km upstream from Narrandera, manager Tony McManus said koalas were a welcome part of the scenery.
"We can then look at things that may be hindering the koalas from actually moving beyond their current population," he said. 'I'm losing face and losing credibility': Richard Wilkins calls for a crackdown on photoshopped scam adsFrom America's $US56m spy craft to Hamas's 'poor man's air force', Gaza's sky is abuzz with drones