Kathryn, who lives at at Cawongla, started spotting koalas in her area last year prompted by plans for a Repro Rally which includes her road as part of the rally route.

Since then she has logged all sightings on the Friends of the Koala website. She has also enlisted neighbours to watch out for the koalas and by sending photos through to us, we have been able to confirm a couple of these koalas have chlamydia. This is significant as Friends of the Koala have not received many koalas into care from this area in the past and we were unsure if this was because the incidence rate of disease was low or if it was simply not being noticed.

The area contains good habitat so causes for the disease are unknown. Unfortunately the koalas have been too high in trees to capture for treatment and despite Kathryn's best attempts have not been seen on the ground or low to the ground, situated in a position where capture would be possible. As the trees are all interconnecting it has not been possible to put a trap around them. We can only hope that with the continual watchful eyes of the residents it won't take long till the koalas can receive a vet assessment and treatment.

Kathryn has also plotted all the sightings through Google. To have a look at this follow this link:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109568289111964004596.00046521d16e29439745c&ll=-28.573367,153.074913&spn=0.066332,0.11055&z=13        

For photos of the koalas, follow this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/k.komodo  

The photo at the top of this page is of Sargent one of the koalas being observed and is courtesy of Kathryn.   

 What Kathryn has done demonstrates what a difference one person can make, on many levels, in their local area.